'Cold and numb with fear' Trisha Goddard recalls the moment she feared she'd given her daughter HIV

Trisha Goddard poses on the red carpet
By Georgia Farquharson
published

Chat show queen, Trisha Goddard, has recalled the moment she feared she'd given her baby daughter HIV, after learning about her first husband's secret battle with AIDS at his funeral.

Trisha's first husband, Robert Nesdale, died in 1989 - just weeks after Trisha welcomed her baby girl, Billie, with her second husband, Mark Grieve.

The 63-year-old told The Sun, she went "cold and numb with fear" when she realised she could have unknowingly passed HIV onto her child.

Trisha - who previously opened up about her mental health - had no idea Robert was secretly gay or that he had died of AIDS, and not the lymphoma he had told her was the cause of his battle.

The TV star immediately booked herself in to get tested, but it was an agonising wait to find out the results. "I don't know how I got through it. I was Robert's wife and yet didn't know he had AIDS."

A photo posted by on

Trisha said one of her biggest fears was her newborn baby having to have blood taken. But doctors said this wouldn't be necessary as if she tested positive, her daughter would have contracted the virus due to her breastfeeding.

"I’ll never forget this awful feeling, that I might have been passing on the disease through my milk. It was your worst nightmare," Trisha told The Sun. "When I found out I had tested negative, I broke down and wept."

Having been a journalist for a number of years, Trisha saw first-hand the effect HIV had on babies and had been "haunted" by the images she'd seen.

"I knew what it looked like so I was petrified," she admitted. "When I found out i was OK the relief was immense."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YBlSWcJFxE

The TV star had a hugely successful self-named talk show on ITV from 1998-2004. And 16 years since coming off air, rumour has it Trisha could be making her return.

According to The Sun, Trisha filmed a pilot for a reboot of her talk show last year. “It’s being referred to as Talk to Trisha at the moment. But telly fans will recognise it for what it is — the old legendary show and her back together.”

Trisha is Piers Morgan's next guest on Piers Morgan's Life Stories on Thursday at 9pm on ITV.

Georgia Farquharson
Celebrity writer

Georgia is a Celebrity and Royal Writer working across GoodTo and Woman & Home, and the Director and Founder of communications company Farq Media. Prior to this she was Online Editor at New! Magazine – managing all of their digital content and social media accounts. Where she interviewed all of the hottest reality TV stars and spent far too much time commuting to London. She trained at Nottingham Trent University – where she achieved First Class Honours in Print Journalism whilst juggling copious amounts of work experience, freelance writing, blogging and having far too much fun with the dance society. 

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