'I am so single it’s ridiculous': Josie Gibson talks challenges of dating as a single parent
Josie Gibson has spoken candidly about her love life - and says she’s not with any of the men she’s been photographed with in public.
The This Morning presenter, 41, was recently snapped holding hands with fellow TV star Stephen Mulhern, 47, sending the rumour mill into overdrive about a blossoming new romance.
“Every time I like get pictured with a man, everyone thinks I’m with them,” sighed Gibson talking to the Standard. “The joke about it is I am so single it’s ridiculous.
“I don’t message anybody, I don’t text anybody. I haven’t even got anybody I fancy but for some reason every time I’m pictured with a man everyone thinks they are my boyfriend and really they’re not. They [including Stephen] are lovely, lovely blokes, but I couldn’t be more single if I tried.”
The only man in the Gloucestershire-born personality’s life is her five-year-old son Reggie and while she wouldn’t say no to dating in future, it would need to be someone she has a genuine “connection” with.
They would also need to get over the hurdle that she and Reggie currently co-sleep.
“I’m like, ‘you’ve got to go in your own room! You’ve got to go in your own room!’ And if he does, I want him back!” she laughs.
“Imagine going to meet someone now. It’s so hard because like, you’ve got your man in your life [Reggie], and then you’ve got to let another man in. It’s weird. Just at this rate it’s a little bit, yeah.
“Don’t get me wrong if it happens then lovely, but I’ve got to really connect with someone and that doesn’t happen very often for me.
“I’d have to get Reggie in his [own] room, kick him out of the bed and find someone I connect with and it don’t ever happen. Maybe in a few years but at the moment, the struggle is real – the juggle is real, especially as a full-time mum! Every day is a juggle but like any parent out there will know, you just make it work. You’ve got to, you ain’t got no choice.”
Clearly her pride and joy, Gibson was thrilled that she recently got to work with Reggie on a campaign with Yoplait to highlight the dairy deficit in children’s diets.
According to new research, the past decade has seen children’s calcium intake fall significantly, resulting in just under a fifth of four to 10-year-olds now clinically deficient in vitamin D.
As a result, the findings claim that bone health diseases, such as rickets, are resurfacing again for the first time since the 1950s.
“We love yoghurt in our house and it was so lovely to be able to take my little boy on a shoot with me and just have a lovely day with him,” she enthused. “He really got into it, we were giving each other little yoghurt moustaches!
“You never quite know how they are going to be, but I think he was into it because he was surrounded by all of his favourite yoghurts – we ate so many!
“I did a shoot with him around my house once and it was bad! The photos came out lovely but I was thinking ‘if only you knew!’
“Before I was always going ‘oh could we have a picture?’ Now he’s like ‘mum, take a picture! Take a picture!’
The former I’m A Celebrity favourite wouldn’t mind if Reggie decided to follow her into showbiz, but she would prefer he chose a career behind the camera, explaining: “I’d like him to be a camera man because you can travel the world, you can see everything, you get to see everything through the eye of the lens and if you’re a really good one then the world is your oyster.”
Josie Gibson and son Reggie are on a mission with Yoplait to get kids eating more yoghurt again as research shows kids are swapping yoghurt for more sugary foods like biscuits and sweets.
