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Presenter Kirsty Gallacher has revealed she had a breakdown and collapsed on live TV following her divorce, saying she was in a huge amount of ‘pain’.
Gallacher, 47, married rugby player Paul Sampson in 2010 after meeting in 1999, and went on to have two kids with the sports star.
However, after 15 years together, they got divorced in 2015 – an experience that she was ‘unable to cope’ with.
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At the same time as she was navigating the breakup, Gallacher competed on popular British series Strictly Come Dancing, which left her ‘skinny as a rake’ from running on empty for too long, having juggled the stint on the show alongside her busy job as a presenter.
Opening up about what happened on Gabby Logan’s Mid Point podcast, she recalled: "I was a wreck. I was skinny as rake. I was running on empty, running from dance rehearsals with the lovely Brendan Cole to Sky Sports to rehearsals at night.
"It was more than exhausting, emotionally, physically.
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"There was nothing negative about the show apart from me being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was like a cauldron of emotion."
Two years after her divorce, Gallacher found herself banned from driving for two years after being caught three times over the legal limit while on her way to pick the kids up at 11am one morning.
At the time, her ‘stressful’ breakup was named as a factor for her actions, with Jennifer Dempster, in mitigation, saying that Gallacher was not ‘someone who normally drinks to excess’.
“This is a young lady, it has been a stressful time,” Dempster said.
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"There are difficulties arising from the breakdown of her marriage.”
At one point, Gallacher even collapsed while hosting Sky Sports.
"I had a breakdown,” she told Logan, 49, on the podcast.
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“I didn't cope very well after that. I kept going for so long.
"I had a virus, but I was also having a breakdown. I know what was going on in my head, I wanted to run away really. I was just in pain."
She went on to admit she still struggles being single, but knows about the dangers of moving on too quickly.
"You want to meet someone else quickly to fill the void,” Gallacher said.
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“I'd been with Sampso for a long time, two kids they're my life. Suddenly I was like I'm on my own.
“It was just awful. I'm still not great on my own. The person I look back at makes me very sad.
“I was dating the wrong people. I was on the floor [at the end of my relationship]. It's taken me a long time to build myself up."
Topics: Celebrity, Sex and Relationships
Jess Hardiman