Trisha Goddard: ‘Rule out people with mental health problems and you’d get nobody on TV’

The one-time queen of British talkshows blames producers for the genre’s toxicity, which has led to deaths and the axing of The Jeremy Kyle Show – while she has suffered as many upheavals as any of her guests

In the mid-00s, Trisha Goddard saved a fellow diner from choking. The woman had been eating steak at a nearby table in a Norwich restaurant when she got into trouble. Goddard calmly went to her aid, helped her cough it up, then got on with her meal. It’s fitting because the one-time British queen of the chatshow is exactly the sort of person you would turn to in a crisis. Cancer, emotional abuse, depression, family suicide, racism, career highs and lows – Goddard has been through it all, and is seemingly unflappable in a crisis. “Mmm,” she says. “Well, I hope if I’ve taught my daughters anything, it’s resilience. Look, shit happens!”

Patricia Gloria Goddard, 61, is speaking to me on the phone from Connecticut, where she has lived since 2010. Her time in the US hasn’t affected her accent, and her voice remains as warm and familiar as it was during her heyday on British television.

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from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2VUtnEJ