Kate Garraway

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Kate Garraway

Born	Kathryn Mary Garraway^[1] 4 May 1967 (1967-05-04) (age 41)^{[citation needed]} Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England
Occupation	Journalist, Presenter
Spouse	Ian Rumsey (1998 - 2002) Derek Draper (2005-present)
Ethnicity	English
Notable credit(s)	GMTV

Kathryn Mary Garraway (born 4 May 1967) is an English journalist and presenter.

1 TV career
2 Personal life
3 References
4 External links

[edit] TV career

Garraway went to Fitzharrys School in Abingdon, then graduated from Bath Spa University with a BA in English and History. Her broadcasting career began with BBC Radio Oxford, and by 1994, she had become an Independent Television News trainee journalist.

In 1995, Garraway moved to Central News as a production journalist, reporter, and news presenter. It was during her time there that she was noticed by Meridian Broadcasting's head of news who poached her (after seeing one of three minute bulletins) to become the main presenter on their night Meridian Tonight programme. This offered enough visibility on a wider stage to be selected as part of the team of presenters which launched the BBC's 24-hour rolling news channel, BBC News 24, a period which would include the anchoring of such stories as the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

In 1998, Nick Pollard, Head of Sky News, offered Garraway a new presenting role; she joined their breakfast programme, Sunrise, as their main anchor, covering stories such as the Kosovo crisis, the Paddington rail crash, the Turkish earthquakes, and the Iraq bombing.

In 2000, Garraway joined GMTV as a main presenter. During her time at GMTV, Garraway has presented a travel strand, Where on Earth? and presented live material from the Cannes Film Festival. She is now one of the anchorwomen at GMTV.

In 2007, Garraway became a questioner on the new National Lottery show The People's Quiz.

Kate appearead in the fifth series of BBC's hit show, Strictly Come Dancing, partnered with professional dancer, Anton Du Beke. During the celebrities' rehearsals before the show began, Kate became seriously injured and her and Anton had to stop training for many months, with the possibility of having to pull out of the competition. Luckily, Kate managed to make the first live show, but unfortunately couldn't participate in the Group Dance. The following week was the Ladies night, which Kate managed to make, but with only three days practise. Kate was praised for managing to perform, but was heavily criticised by the Juding Panel. Despite being bottom of the Leaderboard, Kate was safely voted into the next week. From then on, Kate was constantly placed at the bottom of the Leaderboard, but was constantly saved by the Public thanks to her fans and Anton's fans. The fifth week in to the competition saw a shock in Kate's dancing ability, scoring 26/40, with three couples below her. She made it through to the next week. Sadly, Kate once again was at the bottom of the Leaderboard, despite fans claiming other poor celebrities such as Kenny Logan were worse, but were scored higher. Kate managed to survive till week seven. With only eight celebrities remaining, Kate was sadly voted off. In February 2008, she launched legal action against the Sunday Mirror after it published a photograph of her embracing Strictly Come Dancing partner Anton Du Beke.^[2]

Garraway has also made numerous television appearances on shows such as:

Loose Women
Have I Got News For You
The Wright Stuff
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
hosting ITV's Too Many Cooks
presenting Beef Encounter for Channel 4 with Jon Snow (a current affairs special on the B.S.E. enquiry)
Guest The F Word, in May 2008

[edit] Personal life

Garraway lived in Oxfordshire before marriage, and now has a home in North London. She married Central TV producer Ian Rumsey in Abingdon, Oxfordshire in 1998. He was her former boss at Meridian TV in Kent around 1995, and was two years younger than her, but they divorced in April 2002. She said it was due to his relationship with then twenty-four-year-old Hannah Stewart-Jones (now Shellswell), a TV reporter at his Oxford studio, which he denied. In July 2005, she announced on GMTV that she was engaged to psychotherapist Derek Draper whom she married on 10 September that year in the London Borough of Camden, as covered in an OK! magazine exclusive. Draper is the former political aide to Peter Mandelson and was at the centre of the scandal known as Lobbygate. The couple celebrated the birth of their first child, a baby girl, Darcey Mary Draper, in Hammersmith and Fulham^[3] on 10 March 2006. She was criticized in the newspaper press after she was photographed smoking whilst pregnant. ^[4] ^[5]

Kate Garraway flew into a rage at a council planning meeting where she was told to alter a new extension, according to a report shown in the Daily Mail.^[6]

On 18 October 2007 Garraway's car was crushed over road tax because the tax disc of her VW Beetle was out of date.

Throughout the first part of 2007, many fans had been complaining about Kate's sudden weight loss. However, in an interview she admitted that she had finally been diagnosed with an overactive thyroid which is very common in new mothers. This meant she lost over 3 stones in weight and was very hyperactive.

On 10 April 2008 Garraway earned substantial damages in the high court from Mirror Group Newspapers over unfounded allegations published in the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror in February that she had an affair with her Strictly Come Dancing colleague Anton du Beke. The Mirror group paid her costs and committed itself not to repeat the claims.^[7]

In an article for the The Observer, Garraway confessed that she had been lying to her friends about her age, and that she had actually turned 41 on 4 May 2008. ^[8]

Kate Garraway has earned a strong male fan base, particularly on the internet, due to her good looks and voluptuous figure. A fan site, Garrawench.com, was estimated to have 30,000 members by the Daily Mail at the height of its popularity. Recently a banana which Kate bit into was sold for £1,650 to a male fan with the money given to charity.^[9] Her hobbies include scuba diving, bodyboarding, playing the clarinet, and movie-going. She is a Gillingham F.C. football fan.