Paralympics host Clare Balding told 'you dodged a bullet' after turning down ex-boyfriend
Clare Balding and her wife Alice Arnold have opened up on the beginnings of their relationship in recent podcasts
Clare Balding was told she “dodged a bullet” by the ex-wife of a man whose proposal she turned down. Clare, 53, told the story on the Walking The Dog with Emily Dean podcast in late 2023 her ex-boyfriend by Emily Dean.
Before Clare told the story, Emily mentioned how much respect she had for Clare for turning down the proposal by a man who Emily said “would have ticked a lot of boxes”.
In response, Clare said that she “didn’t trust” the man and later revealed how her instincts had been proved right when she bumped into his ex-wife a few years ago.
She said: “I didn’t trust him and I was quite right not to trust him. Funnily enough, I bumped into his ex-wife on the towpath a couple of years ago and she said ‘You dodged a bullet’.”
Clare has been married to former journalist and broadcaster Alice Arnold, 62, since 2015 and the pair having been together since the 2000s.
The pair met in 1999 when they were both working at the BBC and they entered into a civil partnership in 2006 before marrying nine years later.
Speaking about her relationship with Alice on Gyles Brandreth’s Rosebud podcast, Clare explained how her mother was initially suspicious of her relationship with Alice.
She explained: “My mother, I think, was a bit suspicious from early on as, A) Alice is from London. And secondly, [she] was an actress at that time and both of those things were a little bit, 'ooh'.”
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Alice added: “I might as well have been a prostitute. I think she was wary of me, but then we had a sort of cottage down in the countryside that we rented from Clare's uncle, and it was pouring with rain one day.
“And, I was out in the garden in, kind of, a boiler suit digging and I think when she saw that she thought, 'Oh you're alright then, you can do digging in the garden'. I think she forgave the actress thing because I was prepared to get muddy.”
Clare Balding is set to appear as part of the BBC’s coverage of the Paralympics beginning with the opening ceremony in Paris this evening.
