Today marks one year since Kate Garraway said goodbye to her husband, Derek Draper, who was just 56 when he died following an agonising illness.
The political lobbyist turned psychotherapist had suffered severe health complications after contracting coronavirus in March 2020. In December 2023, his condition worsened following a cardiac arrest, and he died on January 3, 2024, after slipping into a coma.
Devoted Kate, 57, cared for Derek until the very end, documenting his illness and her grief in a way that has resonated with countless families across the country. As the Good Morning Britain presenter marks the first anniversary of her husband's sad passing, Kate continues to be a strong voice for those living with long Covid, and those dealing with the heartache of caring for gravely ill family members.
Through it all, mum-of-two Kate hasn't shied away from discussing how brutal this first year without Derek has been - from the crushing debts she's had to face, to a "tough" Christmas filled with memories of happier times.
Crushing debt
Kate has been open about the issues with debt she's faced in the wake of Derek's illness and previously shared that she'd needed to find £16,000 a month for her late husband's around-the-clock treatment. Speaking candidly in her March documentary Kate Garraway: Derek's Story, which followed the final year of Derek's life, Kate confided: "Derek's care costs more than my salary from ITV and that is before you pay for a mortgage, before you pay any household bills, before you pay for anything for the kids, so we are at a crunch point.
"I am in debt. I can't earn enough money to cover my debt because I am managing Derek's care, and I can't even use the money I do have to support Derek's recovery because it's going on the basics all the time."
Devastatingly, there were more money difficulties to follow. Last May, it was reported that Kate was faced with a £150,000 bill as a result of closing Derek's psychotherapeutic business, Asta Aspera, which was shut down with £184,096.96 worth of debt. It was also said that Kate had been told to pay a £32,000 flat fee on top of 40 per cent of assets recovered from the company according to The Sun.
Kate also reportedly had to deal with a £112,836 bill from a director's loan taken out by Derek, and had to call in financial help from London financial experts Hacker Young. Back in May, a source close to the star told the Mirror in May that she had engaged the specialists to handle discussions with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). The source said: "Kate has made no secret of her financial issues, which include Derek's medical care bills and the collapse of his company. She is now getting the help she needs to help with the tax bill."
TV company losses
Just last month, documents showed that Kate's TV firm, Praespero 100 Ltd, had gone from making a profit to racking up debts of £165,000 in a 12-month period. This followed reports that three other firms the presenter held with her late husband had run up a staggering £2 million in debts.
Recently filed accounts on Companies House showed Praespero 100 Ltd, which is also said to owe £128,731 to creditors, being £165,011 in debt up to November 30, 2023. For the previous financial year, the firm's reports showed it holding a £36,88 profit. The company Kate's representatives have previously declined to comment on these reports.
First tough Christmas without Derek
Ahead of her first Christmas without Derek, Kate opened up to co-presenter Susanna Reid about her grief. She admitted: "It's very raw, Susanna, to be honest. It's very raw."
"I mean, this time last year, Derek was still alive - very sick. We thought it was the toughest Christmas because, weirdly, in 2020, we had a lot of hope that he was coming out… I think that I am [still] in the early stages of grief… The pain and the feeling is still there."
On Christmas Eve, fellow Good Morning Britain star Ranvir Singh paused the show to check in with Kate after the ITV show discussed Prime Minister Keir Starmer and King Charles' moving festive messages about combating loneliness.
Showing support for her bereaved colleague, Ranvir asked Kate: "Yeah, can I ask you a question, Kate, before I do the news? What erm... How are you feeling? We all think of you and Derek, of course. And this time last year, he was still with us."
In response, Kate shared: "Yeah, so it's our first Christmas without him. I've been talking to Andi Peters, who lost his mum and warned me that Christmas is the hardest time." She added: "I think this one will be particularly hard. But I'm lucky that I've got family around me, and it's distracting. But I think you do feel grief because that's the point where you have the memories of previous years, and you were lucky enough to still have them over the last four or five years, even though they were very ill."
Ranvir then asked: "Was he very ill this time last year?" to which a tearful Kate replied: "He was, yes. He was in intensive care this time last year. But we were going in to him in intensive care. Inside my head I did fear this was a grim one, but the children didn't. They were still very hopeful."
Reflecting on how the festive season can affect those in morning, Kate continued: "So yeah, it's a tough one this year and I think anyone who is experiencing grief, it does hit you when you feel something which is full of tradition and you have memories. It comes back. But I'm thinking of everybody else who's feeling that."
Call on government
Kate today confronted Health Secretary West Streeting about the challenge of "dealing with the funding of care", noting that, while she herself was fortunate enough to have a good salary to pay for the care, the costs had still left her with "excessive unpayable debt". She went on to share her fears for others going through similar ordeals and asked Mr Streeting to consider the urgency of the issue after he announced that his review into the care system would take years.
Drawing from her own heartbreaking experiences on today's Good Morning Britain, Kate told Mr Streeting: "I'm going to be honest. In my mind, I'm thinking about the situation with Derek. It actually happens to be the anniversary of his death—the one-year anniversary of his death—today, which is a day only relevant to me, but over the last few weeks, the family and I have been talking about the challenges we faced this time last year.
"And one of the overriding ones until he went back into intensive care before he passed away was dealing with the funding of care. At the time of his death, there were two appeals that hadn't been heard for funding. It kept on getting pushed back and pushed back. In the meantime, and I'm lucky I've got an incredible job which is well-paid, I was having to fund the situation. Now I've got excessive unpayable debt because of it, and if I'm in that position, what else are people going to be? People can't afford four more years of this?"
Today, Mr Streeting announced an independent probethat will pave the way for the new 'National Care Service' promised in the Labour Party manifesto. However, any major reforms may not be delivered until 2028, which could well be too late for families like Kate's, who are already struggling with care costs amid the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
Outlining his plans for the service, the Health Secretary explained: "I was going to say, Kate, I think that's why your story connected with so many people. It's not just that you're a familiar face on people's screens and your viewers feel they've got a relationship with you as a presenter, it's also because your experience with Derek and your family's experience resonates with so many people across the country who are struggling with the same costs or the same unmet needs or similar experiences.
"And I think one of the reasons why we've always ended back into this sort of the short-termist cycle of failure, is whenever we talk about social care, there are costs involved, and that sort of makes people run for the hills and want to stick their head in the sand in politics, because sometimes those numbers can be scary."
He continued: "And one of the reasons I genuinely think, even with the majority of the size that we've got, it's a good thing to try and build cross-party consensus is I want to come up with a plan that means whoever's in government after the next general election or the one after that, whether it's a Labour government or a Conservative government or a coalition or whoever that, broadly speaking, we keep the same direction of travel on social care in the way that we have with the NHS since 1948."
Do you have a story to share? Email me at julia.banim@reachplc.com. Follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads