Truth about the romance rumours swirling around Helen Skelton and Gethin Jones: Insiders tell KATIE HIND how their friendship has evolved – and why it could be great news for the BBC

When the BBC began searching for two permanent presenters to host its Morning Live show, they hoped to find the next Richard and Judy.

Another hugely popular married couple like Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan – who launched ITV’s This Morning back in 1998 and defined chatty morning television for a generation – were exactly what BBC bosses wanted if they were to win a ratings war with their long-running ITV rivals.

The only problem was that there weren’t many options.

Instead, for Morning Live’s relaunch in January last year, they threw the dice and came up with lovable Countryfile host Helen Skelton, and Gethin Jones, a safe pair of hands who had intermittently anchored the programme since it had first gone on air in 2020.

Bosses agreed they had enough in common to make it a success: both had presented Blue Peter and had taken part in BBC’s flagship Saturday night show, Strictly, so were already known to a big part of their key audience.

They were also, as it happened, both single.

But fast-forward 18 months and bosses at the corporation are wondering whether they’ve found their dream couple, after all.

Rumours are that the BBC’s Morning Live presenters Helen Skelton, 41, and Gethin Jones, 47, who are both single, are today rather more than just an on-screen partnership

The couple were pictured on a motorbike together, heading out for breakfast in Manchester city centre

For the rumours are that Helen, 41, and Gethin, 47, are today rather more than just an on-screen partnership.

While neither has commented on talk of a romance, sources who know the pair have told The Mail on Sunday that they are ‘very happy together’.

One said: ‘Literally, they found one another at work, they were right under one another’s noses. Nobody saw this coming. It is very sweet that they have found happiness together but even better for the BBC and their ratings because now viewers are tuning in to watch the chemistry after their secret has gradually seeped out into the public domain.

‘How ironic that the BBC were looking for a “Richard and Judy” and now, totally without trying, they might just have found them.

‘What a coup they might have pulled off, and what is all the more lovely is that it just happened – their friendship has evolved into romance.’

Tongues have been wagging for a while as the pair have been seen looking cosy on several occasions away from the television studio.

Last Monday, Helen and Gethin were spotted leaving a spa close to Gethin’s home in Cheshire – 110 miles from Helen’s home in Cumbria – where onlookers reported that they were ‘all over each other’. Helen was also seen leaving the venue with a suitcase.

Three years ago, Helen was devastated when her husband of eight years, rugby player Richie Myler, walked out on her just four months after she gave birth to their youngest child, Elsie. They also share sons Ernie and Louis

Three weeks ago, after filming for Morning Live at BBC headquarters in Salford, they were also seen leaving on a motorbike together, heading for breakfast in Manchester city centre.

The pair were also pictured appearing very close at the Baftas, and again at a charity ball set up by the sisters of late England rugby league star Rob Burrow, who died of motor neurone disease last year. Fellow guests at the ball claimed ‘it was very clear that Helen and Gethin were together as a couple at the event’.

What makes their story so much more enthralling is that they have both had their hearts shattered in the past.

Gethin bated Katherine Jenkins in 2011, and at one time said that he’d struggled to find a girlfriend since their break-up

Cumbria-born Helen’s heartache was most recent. She was left devastated when her husband of eight years, rugby player Richie Myler, walked out on her in April 2022, just four months after she gave birth to their third child, Elsie.

Richie quickly moved on with Stephanie Thirkill, the daughter of Leeds Rhinos president Andrew Thirkill, the club he played for from 2017 until 2023. Former Radio 5 host Helen announced on Instagram that Richie had ‘left the family home’.

Meanwhile, Cardiff-born Gethin struggled for some years to get over his 2011 split from fellow Welsh star, opera singer Katherine Jenkins.

I saw his devastation firsthand a decade ago, when I spent the day with him as he hosted the spin-off show for Dancing With The Stars, the US version of Strictly. Gethin and Katherine met and began dating in 2007, and were engaged by February 2011. But they split just ten months later.

Katherine was thought to have ended the relationship, although she has more recently insisted it was Gethin who had pulled the plug.

Regardless, when I interviewed him at the show’s West Hollywood studios in the spring of 2015, he was still clearly wounded by the split.

Gethin, then 37, had spent most of the day telling me how he’d struggled to find a girlfriend since Katherine, and had come to the US to find a new life and to rid himself of the heartache.

Gethin and Helen at the Baftas in May this year

Katherine, meanwhile, had moved on, and married American producer Andrew Levitas just nine months before my meeting with Gethin.

I joked with him that he was probably one of the most eligible bachelors in Tinseltown – which was met with a rather sad face. It was like he had given up.

It all made a bit more sense when, last year, he admitted that the split punctured his mental health.

He said: ‘I was engaged and then breaking up. Afterwards, or even during that period, it was just awful. I remember doing BBC Radio 5 Live and going into the toilet at 5.30am going, “All right. Come on. Just focus for the next three hours, and then you can go back to being sad again.” I definitely had a bad bout of depression during that time.’

One friend added: ‘Gethin is a kind, soppy bloke who just wants to settle down. He went through a very difficult time with Katherine, it broke his heart, but now Helen seems to have put a smile on his face.

‘And, of course, Helen went through one of the worst things imaginable when Richie left her. She never thought she would be happy again but now they are having a tremendous time together.’

As for the future, sources across the television industry are waiting for Helen and Gethin to go public with their romance, and finally tell viewers about their relationship.

And when they do, insiders at several TV channels say Helen and Gethin will become the most sought-after television couple since Richard and Judy.

‘At that point, expect them to be the target of other broadcasters,’ says my source. ‘Every channel will want them. It could be a very lucrative romance, indeed.’