Carol Vorderman says 'it was unstable' as she opens up about family struggle

Carol Vorderman has candidly discussed her "unstable" childhood, which once led her to contemplate running away to join the circus. The 64-year-old TV personality grew up in Wales with her mother Edwina Davies and stepfather Gabriel Rizzi. She has previously likened moving into Gabriel's home to transitioning from a "moving from a black and white world into one of technicolour".

Speaking on James O'Brien's Full Disclosure podcast, Carol detailed how Gabriel would drive around town in a pickup truck. She says locals found her stepfather's love of swearing "hilarious". The mum-of-two explained: "I loved my dad, he had a pickup truck, and I loved going up town, because every town in Wales has a castle, so we had the castle at the top of town, and he always come rain, hail, sleet or snow had the window down with his arm out, and he knew everyone.



There were only like 4,000 people if that and he would swear every third word. "His first language was Italian, his second language Welsh and third language swearing. He'd go "Cat you b**** come here now', and I thought it was hilarious, I loved it, it's probably why I love swearing so much now.

"Then we'd go up town and he'd say, 'This is Robert you old cow', and everyone thought it was hilarious and he would get away with it." However, she also revealed that her mother's relationship with Gabriel was fraught with difficulties, leading to their eventual separation in 1980, reports Wales Online . Carol revealed with heartfelt emotion: "He was like technicolour.

Life was in technicolour with my dad but mum kept leaving him, so that meant everything was unstable really. "We ran away to the circus once, not even kidding, because my sister worked for Billy Smart Junior and they had to be in Leicester at the time. So my mum left my stepfather, yet again, and ran away with me.

I think I was like 10 or something, so I sold candyfloss for a week." "We lived in this, it was horrible, it was opposite Leicester prison and there was this broken pane of glass in this thing, it was like a BandB, an old-fashioned BandB." The former Countdown star took an emotional journey down memory lane on her 2021 BBC programme Closer to Home with Gabriel.

During the show, Carol introduced viewers to her step brother Arthur and his son Tino, Tino’s son Joel, and Arthur's wife Elaine. Describing the larger-than-life personality of Gabriel, she expressed how he was "loud and funny" and someone whom she "worshipped" A poignant moment unfolded as Carol confided to viewers: "Growing up my biological dad refused to have anything to do with me. "But one day, when I was nine, my mum met a handsome former Italian prisoner of war, who became my step father, and my dad.

" With touching honesty, she continued: "Reminiscing about my dad always gets me emotional. The hardest thing is the knowledge now - I'm going to start crying again - that my step father loved me, probably as much as I loved him. "And I only have to think about it and it makes me cry.

And I think I'm grieving for him. For the first time. "Grieving for the lost years that I could have had with him in my life.

But I will be forever grateful for the time I did have with him.".