This Morning viewers were left shocked when Dermot O’Leary let slip back in June that co-host Alison Hammond had a secret boyfriend – but what’s even more surprising is that the two are now engaged.
Having met Ben Hawkins – a landscape gardener – after she hired him to work at her West Midlands home, Alison, 48, has kept their relationship on the downlow for 18 months, only to be outed by Ben’s father Colin.
The 72 year old told a paper, “I do know they have both proposed to one another, but there are no rings that I know of. They are really happy, but they haven’t got everything sorted just yet. They are both talking about marriage. When it happens, none of us will know about it because it’ll be done in private.”
Alison – who shares 18-year-old son Aidan with her ex-husband Noureddine Boufaied – recently hinted that she was ready to get married, saying, “There’s someone special and if he wants to pop the question, he can pop away. He loves me to bits. He absolutely worships me.”
After Ben’s identity was revealed, it was reported that he had been jailed twice for drugs offences, but had since turned over a new leaf and was “in a far happier place now”.
