| Lady Wilnelia, ‘He is wonderful, doing really well ...and I’m sure with a bit of luck, he’ll be back’ |
LADY WILNELIA FORSYTH ON BRUCIE
In an exclusive interview with This Morning’s Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby, Lady Wilnelia Forsyth spoke of her husband’s recovery and relationship together.
The former Miss World who met and married Sir Bruce Forsyth over 30 years ago explained how their love is just as strong for one another despite their 29 year age gap. She said,
“We met in 1980, five years after Miss World. He asked me for a dance and then started talking to me… and that evening he said ‘thank you for the most wonderful evening of my life’. It seems like yesterday really, it’s been amazing.”
She added,
“How? Maybe not taking each other for granted, we have really good communication, we can talk about everything… and I think that’s so important to say you’re sorry when you’re in the wrong. We like the same things. It’s worked for us!”
Remembering how she explained her new relationship to her mother and how she has helped Bruce stay active, Wilnelia revealed,
“My mother and my father are younger than Bruce... They are divorced and I sat them down separately and I mentioned to them the age gap [but] that I’m in love and I think it's the first time I’ve been in love.”
She added, “My mother gave Bruce a book on the day of our wedding and it’s the one called ‘The Fountain of Youth’ and it’s about doing exercise the way the monks used to do. And he really was doing those exercises and did them forever and I think this is one of the reasons he kept so well.”
On swapping Puerto Rico for suburban Surrey, Wilnelia said, “It’s wasn’t until I arrived in England that I realised after our very long honeymoon that I must be absolutely madly in love or absolutely crazy because I left my family, my job, the weather!”
Explaining how worried she has been about her husband’s health, Wilnelia confessed,
“I rushed to the hospital. It was very scary to see him [after the fall] because he was very bruised. It was really really awful. But he managed to recuperate, and we wanted to know why he had that fall… [so] they did many different tests, but everything was fine. And then the doctor decided to do a whole body scan, and that’s when they found the two aneurysms. One is in the abdominal, and one was near his right hip. Then is was a big question, do we go ahead and have the operation, and [doctors said] if you have internal bleeding it’s very difficult to make it. So it was really a worry. But we decided to go ahead [with the operation].”
Revealing how Sir Bruce is recovering from the recent ‘life-saving’ surgery, Wilnelia smiled,
“He is wonderful. He is really wonderful. Especially the last couple of weeks, he’s been really really good and I wanted to take this opportunity to say to the people ‘thank you’… we’ve had so many wonderful letters and phone calls and good wishes for him and I do believe in all this energy and positive thinking… and he’s doing really really well.”
Phillip said, “We miss him! He’s a man that was born to perform. So it must be frustrating for him?”
Wilnelia replied, “Is it. OK, he’s 88, and usually a man of his age had retired but he's been active until just recently and it is very hard.”
Holly asked, “Is he hoping to return to work and public life?”
Wilnelia: “Yes, let's hope so. You know, I don’t expect him to go tap dancing… but he loves the showbusiness and I’m sure with a little bit of luck, he should be back."
For more information, on ITV's This Morning please visit: www.itv.com/thismorning.