Fiona Phillips (born 1 January 1961) is a British journalist, broadcaster and television presenter. She is best known for presenting the ITV Breakfast programme '' GMTV Today''.

Early life

Phillips was born in Canterbury Hospital in

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, the daughter of Phillip (died February 2012) and Amy (died May 2006). Her grandparents ran the Duke's Head pub on Church Street in St Paul's. Phillips attended Kingsmead Primary School. The family later moved to

Southampton Southampton is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. It is located approximately southwest of London, west of Portsmouth, and southeast of Salisbury. Southampton had a population of 253, ...

where Phillips completed her schooling at Millbrook Community School. After leaving school, Phillips worked for a short time at

Mr Kipling Mr Kipling is a brand of cakes, pies and baked goods made in Carlton, South Yorkshire and Stoke-on-Trent, and marketed in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and North America. It was introduced in May 1967 (at a time when cakes were more o ...

's Bakery in Eastleigh, near Southampton. Phillips graduated from Birmingham Polytechnic with a BA (Hons) in English; she also undertook a PGCert in journalism.

Career

Early career

Phillips started her career in independent radio working as a reporter for local stations

County Sound County Sound Radio was an Independent Local Radio station covering Surrey and north-east Hampshire in the United Kingdom. One of its closing forms in 2012–2014 formed Eagle Extra occupying 1566 MW following an internal split between older an ...

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

, Hereward Radio and Radio Mercury in

Sussex Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...

. Moving from radio to television several years later, she joined BBC South East's ''Weekend'' programme as co-presenter, before becoming a reporter with CNN News, later moving on to become the station's entertainment editor, producing, reporting and presenting CNN News' entertainment output.

Television

Phillips has presented other programmes, including the celebrity lifestyle show '' OK! TV'', ''Baby House'' and ''Room to Rent'', Carlton's entertainment guide ''Good Stuff'', LWT's Friday evening entertainment show ''Start the Weekend'', ITV's ''Sunday Night'' and the ''Rich and Famous'' series. Phillips currently writes an opinion column in the ''

Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily Tabloid journalism, tabloid newspaper. Founded in 1903, it is part of Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), which is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the tit ...

'' on Saturdays and works as an agony aunt in New! magazine. Phillips was a regular panellist on '' Loose Women'' in 2002, and was a guest anchor in 2004 and 2005. She returned to '' Loose Women'' as a guest anchor in March 2009 and again in March 2010. In August 2010, she appeared as a panellist on the short-lived ITV chat show '' 3@Three''. She took part in the third series of ''

Strictly Come Dancing ''Strictly Come Dancing'' (commonly referred to as ''Strictly'') is a British dance contest show in which celebrities partner with professional dancers to compete in mainly Ballroom dance, ballroom and Latin dance, Latin dance. Each couple is ...

'' in 2005, with professional partner Brendan Cole. The pair were voted out on Week 4 following several weeks of low scores. Phillips had also been in the documentary ''The Killer in Me'' on 8 November 2007, a show that saw four celebrities agree to take a groundbreaking test that revealed the secret killers lurking in their genes. Phillips joined former England footballer John Barnes, political commentator and presenter Andrew Neil, and Heart FM DJ Toby Anstis who all found out their risk of developing 11 major diseases, including cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer's disease. Phillips is a regular reporter for the BBC One consumer affairs programme '' Watchdog''. On 19 March 2015, Phillips presented ''The Truth About...Sugar'' and on 2 June 2016, she presented ''The Truth About...Healthy Eating''. Both programmes aired on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...

''GMTV''

In 1993, Phillips joined ''

GMTV GMTV (an initialism for Good Morning Television), now legally known as ''ITV Breakfast, ITV Breakfast Broadcasting Limited'', was the name of the national ITV (TV network), ITV breakfast television contractor/licensee, broadcasting in the Uni ...

'' as entertainment correspondent and was promoted to ''GMTV''/Reuters Television's LA correspondent in December 1993. For over two years Phillips provided daily and weekly reports and covered a number of big news stories including the Michael Jackson alleged child molestation case, the LA earthquake, the first O.J. Simpson trial, the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and the Oscars. She also interviewed some of the industry's biggest stars such as

Leonardo DiCaprio Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio (; ; born November 11, 1974) is an American actor and film producer. Known for Leonardo DiCaprio filmography, his work in biographical and period films, he is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received ...

Clint Eastwood Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western (genre), Western TV series ''Rawhide (TV series), Rawhide'', Eastwood rose to international fame with his role as the "Ma ...

, Brad Pitt and Mel Gibson among others. From 1997 to 2008, she was the main anchor on ''

'', presenting '' GMTV Today'' every Monday to Wednesday. On 28 August 2008, Phillips announced that she was to leave her role as main anchor on ''

'' for family reasons. She presented her final show on 18 December 2008. Phillips returned to ''

'' in 2010 in its last series, guest presenting on '' GMTV with Lorraine''. Since September 2010, she has regularly guest presented the ITV Breakfast programme '' Lorraine'' (successor of ''GMTV with Lorraine'').

Film

She

voiced Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to refe ...

the character of Katie Current in the UK release of '' Shark Tale'' (2004).

Radio

Phillips hosted a show on Smooth Radio in the 2–5 pm slot every Sunday, starting from Easter Sunday, 23 March 2008, until 2009 when she left the station. She also stood in for Simon Mayo on Radio 5 Live from 30 March to 3 April 2009.

Personal life

Phillips has been married to Martin Frizell since 1997 and they have two children. Frizell is the editor of '' This Morning''. Phillips is a supporter of Chelsea F.C., although she followed her home town club, Southampton F.C. when she was younger. Philips has reported to have been a

vegetarian Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the Eating, consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects as food, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slau ...

for over twenty years. However in 2015, she commented, "I'm mainly vegetarian, but I have fish maybe once a month if my body feels it needs it." In July 2023, Phillips revealed that she had been diagnosed with

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease and the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As the disease advances, symptoms can include problems wit ...

in 2022.

Political views

Phillips is a supporter of the Labour Party. She said she had been offered a job in November 2007 as public health minister in the administration of Gordon Brown, as well as a

peerage A peerage is a legal system historically comprising various hereditary titles (and sometimes Life peer, non-hereditary titles) in a number of countries, and composed of assorted Imperial, royal and noble ranks, noble ranks. Peerages include: A ...

. Phillips said she declined due to her responsibilities to her two small children. She attended the 2009 Labour Party Conference in Brighton, where she introduced an address by the

Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, more commonly known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom and the head of the Home Office. The position is a Great Office of State, maki ...

Alan Johnson. She was a panellist on BBC One's '' Question Time'' in June 2009. Phillips is a patron of the anti-racist organisation Hope Not Hate, which has the slogan "Celebrating Britain's diverse society". In August 2014, Phillips was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.

Charity

Phillips is one of the judges of the '' Daily Mirror Pride of Britain Awards'', and for presenting the

Emergency Services award. She has also been one of the judges for the Children of Courage awards. From 15 October 2007, she reported from Geita, North Tanzania, for one week to visit Neema, a 13-year-old girl who Phillips has been sponsoring, and her family, friends and local schools. On 13 March 2008, Phillips, while Age Concern Ambassador, presented the Age Concern Grandparent of the Year 2008, which took place in the

Houses of Parliament The Palace of Westminster is the meeting place of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is located in London, England. It is commonly called the Houses of Parliament after the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two legislative ch ...

. She has continued as an Ambassador for the successor charity Age UK.

Filmography

Television

;

Films

Awards and honours

In 1996, Phillips was nominated for the

Royal Television Society The Royal Television Society (RTS) is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present, and future. It is the oldest television society in the world. It currently has fourteen r ...

Interview of the Year Award. On 7 November 2007, Phillips received an Honorary Master of Arts degree from Southampton Solent University, for "being a person distinguished in eminence and by attainments". On 21 July 2011, Phillips received an Honorary Fellowship from

Cardiff University Cardiff University () is a public research university in Cardiff, Wales. It was established in 1883 as the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire and became a founding college of the University of Wales in 1893. It was renamed Unive ...

References

External links

*
Fiona Phillips column
Mirror.co.uk {{DEFAULTSORT:Phillips, Fiona 1961 births Living people People from Canterbury People with Alzheimer's disease Alumni of Birmingham City University English reporters and correspondents English women journalists English television presenters Labour Party (UK) people English republicans