Giovanna Fletcher has admitted she made an 'error of judgement' as she breaks her silence having faced a huge backlash over using Government Furlough cash.
Giovanna Fletcher has admitted she made an 'error of judgement' using Government Furlough cash to pay staff after she faced a huge backlash.
The author, actress, and presenter, is mum to Buzz, seven, Buddy, five, and Max, two, who she has with McFly singer husband Tom Fletcher. And despite having a jointly estimated worth of £8million, according to networthlist, the couple admitted they had used money from the furlough scheme.
Reports claim that £30,000 was used from the scheme, a figure which the couple denied was correct but they admitted they had taken 'financial advice' to use money from the job retention scheme to keep a member of their staff in a job.
Giovanna, who previously temporarily split from Tom, took to her Instagram to issue a public apology. She captioned the statement, 'Hi everyone, Tom and I wanted to share this. Gi. x' and uploaded a snap of the full written statement.
It reads, 'Hi Everyone, We've always had a very honest and open relationship with you all on here so we thought it was important to address questions that some of you have rightly asked us in the last 24 hours.
'This weekend there was an article in one of the Sunday papers about using the government Furlough scheme. While parts of the article were inaccurate (including all of the figures mentioned), it is true that we did follow financial advice to furlough someone we employ.'
Whilst using the money is allowed, some wealthy celebrities have come under fire from members of the public for taking advantage of the scheme, which uses taxpayers' cash, instead of using their own money first.
Giovanna Fletcher, who won I'm A Celebrity last year, continued to explain the use of the cash. The statement read, 'This was for a member of our team who couldn't carry out their role due to the pandemic, and the scheme was suggested to us as the most effective way to give them job stability and security.
Although it a time of great uncertainty, we clearly should have thought more about the situation and funded it ourselves. It was a huge error of judgement and a mistake we wholeheartedly take responsibility for and we have paid the full amount back, Gi and Tom x'
https://www.instagram.com/p/CQJtuLyhTvm/
Giovanna, who famously had Kate Middleton on her parenting podcast - Happy Mum, Happy Baby, in which she opened up on her difficult and rotten pregnancies, is set to release her twelfth book Walking on Sunshine, in December 2021.
Meanwhile, Tom has recently teamed up with Gary Barlow and appeared on his new BBC One show, I'm With The Band.
