The husband of TV presenter Fiona Phillips says they have become socially isolated since her Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
Phillips, who hosted ITV’s GMTV breakfast programme, announced in 2023 that she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s the previous year, at the age of 61.
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Martin Frizell, a former editor of ITV’s This Morning show, said: “You become almost invisible.”
He added: “We still have some close friends. But I think people think, oh gosh, Fiona, maybe she doesn’t look the same, or they don’t know what to say, or it brings into sharp focus their own mortality.”
At the time of her diagnosis, Phillips said she had suffered months of brain fog and anxiety – and initially had attributed the symptoms to the menopause.
“It’s something I might have thought I’d get at 80,” Phillips explained. “But I was still only 61 years old.”
Mr Frizell said he now does not know what to do either with her cookery books or designer clothes – both things she no longer uses.
“Fiona hasn’t cooked in two years,” he said.
“Part of the heartache now is she’s got this dressing room full of the most amazing clothes but this horrible disease means she’s more than happy just wearing the same T-shirt, the same trousers, the same thing – day in, day out.”
Mother-of-two Phillips has written a memoir since her diagnosis, which is due to be released on Thursday.
Mr Frizell contributed to the book, saying he had intended to write “a few paragraphs” but ended up writing “24,000 words”.
“I started off writing about what a great woman she is and just how horrible it is and dreadfully unlucky that she is the latest in the long line of her family to get it,” he told the Telegraph.
“Then I just got very angry as to what little support there is. As a family, we just kind of get through it and at some point we will need more support, but there’s just nothing really.”
In 2023, Phillips said the disease had “decimated” her family – with her mother, father and uncle all receiving a diagnosis.
She had cared for her parents and made two documentaries about the disease – one in 2009 called Mum, Dad, Alzheimer’s and Me, about her family’s history of dementia, and My Family and Alzheimer’s in 2010.
The NHS says the term dementia encompasses “a group of symptoms associated with an ongoing decline of brain functioning”.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia in the UK – but its exact cause is not yet fully understood. There is currently no cure for the disease, though some treatments can temporarily improve symptoms.
One in three people born in the UK will be diagnosed with dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s Society charity.
Speaking to ITV’s This Morning on Friday, Mr Frizell said: “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 Starbucks cup of coffee, basically trying to fight a disease. It’s impossible.”
Phillips presented GMTV between 1993 and 2008. She has since led a number of documentaries and episodes of Panorama, and was a columnist for the Mirror.
