Fiona Phillips’ heartbroken husband reveals she accused him of kidnapping her after Alzheimer’s battle left her unable to recognise him

Fiona Phillips’ heartbroken husband has revealed she accused him of kidnapping her after her Alzheimer’s battle left her unable to recognise him. 

The former GMTV host, 64, was diagnosed with the progressive brain disorder in 2022 at the age of just 61.

It came after she left the former ITV breakfast show in 2008 to care for her father, who suffered from it too, dying in 2012, after her mother lost her life to it as well, in 2006. 

Her husband and former This Morning editor Martin Frizell, 66, appeared on the ITV chat show today to discuss her diagnosis, as she was not well enough. 

He told This Morning hosts Alison Hammond, 50, and Dermot O’Leary, 52, about her memoir Remember When: My Life With Alzheimer’s, set for release on July 17.  

And Martin also shared some deeply sad details about how challenging family life has been since Fiona’s diagnosis three years ago. 

He said: ‘In the book, there’s a picture of her at the end of our road, the most recent picture I took, only a few weeks ago.

‘And she’s looking great and she’s smiling and she’s got her coat on. And what you don’t know is she thought I’d kidnapped her. This was us going out. 

‘Because you get delusions because you get so worked up. She keeps saying, “I want to go home”.’

Asked by Alison if she still recognises him, he said: ‘She does recognise me most of the times. Doesn’t quite know that I’m her husband but she knows who I am.’

Martin shared another heartbreaking detail too: ‘Every now and then, she’ll want to go home to her parents and I haven’t got the heart to say they aren’t here.’ 

He explained how he copes with this instead: ‘You say, “Let’s get our coats on, let’s get our shoes on”, we go out, go round the block a couple of times and come back in. And she says, “Oh, I’m home now”.’ 

The former journalist told of what he has learnt in these past three years since her diagnosis: ‘Don’t argue with them.

‘But I’m only human. I keep saying, “I’m not the Mother Teresa of Wandsworth”, I do get frustrated, I do end up arguing sometimes. 

‘You get so worked up after the fifth or sixth or tenth time of saying something.’ 

His perspective and the experiences of the couple’s two sons Nathaniel, 26, and Mackenzie, 23, are also reflected in the memoir. 

Though Fiona primarily wrote it with her friend, journalist Alison Phillips, Martin contributed more than 20,000 words as well. 

He revealed what the diagnosis process was like, saying symptoms she had thought were due to the menopause – including mood swings and brain fog – were actually early onset Alzheimer’s. 

They took her for testing and she was put on HRT – but it still did not help.

It was then, he said: ‘I think we need to go to get tested for what her family had been riddled with…

‘You just get on with life but she knew this disease was going to come knocking at some point.’   

Caveating with praise for the NHS doctors doing their best, he said he did feel angry about the diagnosis experience.

In ‘the starkest room’, he explained: ‘The doctor says, “I’m terribly sorry but I believe it’s Alzheimer’s. And here’s a leaflet, I’ll go to get you a cup of tea”… 

‘She was wearing this fabulous powder blue River Island suit. I think she thought she was going to get away with it. She thought, “Surely it’s not”. She’s looking a million dollars.’ 

But on the leaflet, he said: ‘It’s an old lady with a Zimmer frame and her partner or husband with a shock of white hair just about struggling down the road. 

‘And it’s like, “Living with Alzheimer’s”. And you think, “God, is that it?”‘ 

Martin said it has lit even more of a fire in his belly about Alzheimer’s awareness and research – a cause Fiona has long been vocal about. 

‘I just get so angry’, he said: ‘When you look into it, society has decided we’re not going to take it as seriously as we should.

‘The money that’s there for Alzheimer’s research, it’s like buying a Starbuck’s coffee trying to fight a disease. It’s impossible.’ 

He is furious about ‘the injustice of it all’, pointing to the amount of money going to a project like HS2 – instead of fighting diseases like Alzheimer’s. 

Martin explained: ‘It’s a billion pounds a mile. Imagine if we put a billion pounds into Alzheimer’s research – we’d sort it, we’d absolutely sort it…

‘[Dementia] costs £42billion a year to the NHS and the health service.

‘I say in the book, and deliberately quite provocatively, I wish she got cancer and I mean that in the sense that at least there would be some hope, some treatment.’

He said he feels he is the only one speaking out about the disease and that it gets no real public attention.  

The former This Morning editor said: ‘Once I stop speaking – and I’m not going to be the poster boy for it – I reckon it’ll just quietly go away into the shadows again. 

‘But it’s Britain’s biggest killer. And they say that one in three babies born today, this Friday, one in three of them, is going to develop dementia, unless we do something about it.’  

Martin said they tried bringing in a carer at one point, masquerading her to Fiona as a housekeeper – but Fiona, ‘still whip smart and intelligent’, did not buy it so they gave up. 

‘She’s still very mobile, totally mobile, so we’re not at a stage where we need someone to come in’, he explained. 

Fiona’s personality, as ‘the most fiercely stubborn and independent woman ever’, remains: ‘The old Fiona is still very much there.’ 

Martin also said it has been ‘fantastic’ he now has lasting power of attorney to help her make financial and health decisions. 

But this has not been completely smooth sailing either: ‘There’s one or two who actually are accusing me, “Maybe you’re trying to win one over, we need a bit more evidence”. 

‘And I’m thinking, “What more evidence do you need?”‘ 

Fiona also has problems with general pain, anxiety, depression and sleeping, with the latter seeing her until recently get up very early every morning – which left the family shattered. 

‘We just live for each day’, Martin explained, with the help of his ‘sensational’ sons. 

It comes after he emotionally admitted, in the Mail’s exclusive extract from Fiona’s upcoming memoir, the family are ‘slowly saying goodbye to the woman they love’, who soon will be ‘wiped away’ by the disease.

Martin explained how he and their two sons are ‘enduring a living grief’ as they watch the ‘glittering star’ deteriorate over time.

‘Bit by bit, [Alzheimer’s] takes everything. Through time, even the most glamorous, glittering star – such as Fiona was – will be wiped away’, he wrote.

He added: ‘Sorting the bank accounts, utility direct debits, hospital appointments, clothes, washing, parking permits, shopping, cooking, tidying the house – in fact, all the stuff I took for granted because Fiona dealt with it (as well as her own career) – became my responsibilities, along with a seven-day-a-week job. 

‘It was knackering. There were times I felt drained, physically and emotionally.

‘On top of the stress, the boys and I are enduring a kind of living grief – a slow goodbye to the woman we love.’

Over the weekend, the Mail published exclusive extracts from Fiona’s upcoming memoir, Remember When: My Life With Alzheimer’s.

In the memoir, the pair – who wed in 1997 – revealed their marriage was ‘falling apart’ as a result of Fiona’s then undiagnosed battle with the disease.

Fiona explained: ‘My marriage was coming under increasing strain.

‘I’m sure the disease was at least partly responsible, but at the time neither of us could see it. I just became more and more disconnected from Martin and the boys.

‘”You’ve totally zoned out of our family and our marriage”, he would say to me. “Don’t be so bloody ridiculous!” I’d yell back.

‘But, if I’m honest, I think he was right. I just didn’t seem to have the energy for any of it any more.

‘I didn’t realise quite how seriously Martin felt about it all until one evening he announced he was moving out.

‘”Stop being so ridiculous!'” I yelled. “I’m just worn out. I’m tired – of everything.”

‘”That’s what you’ve been saying for years,'” he replied. “Maybe this – our marriage – is what’s making you so tired.”‘

The Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England have been contacted for comment.  

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