CHANNEL 9 host and 2GB radio presenter Ben Fordham has gushed about his eight-year relationship with wife and Channel 7 news presenter Jodie Speers.
The pair met after Fordham was impressed by Speers’ police reporting on the radio.
“I remember thinking to myself, ‘She’s really good, this Jodie Speers,’” Fordham told nine.com.au.
“So much so that I called my mate, Greg Burns, who was the boss of the radio station, and I went, ‘Mate, that Jodie Speers is bloody amazing’,” Fordham said.
“He was like, ‘Righto, why do you say that?’ And I was like, ‘Well, I reckon that she’s the best reporter going around at the moment — and she’s got a killer voice.’
“He went, ‘Oh, you like her voice do you?’ And I said, ‘Yeah I do.’ And he said, ‘Have you seen her?’ And I said ‘No.’ And he said, ‘Wait ’til you see her.’ And I said, ‘What is that supposed to mean?’ And he said, ‘Oh well, just wait ’til you see her.’”
Six months later, he spotted a beautiful woman at a friend’s birthday party.
“I turned to someone and said, ‘Who’s that?’” he said.
“‘That’s Jodie Speers,’ they said. And I went, ‘Oh. That’s Jodie Speers.’”
Fordham asked Speers’ boss for her number and asked her out for dinner. Turns out he accidentally picked the same night at Speers’ birthday.
“That’s when I thought, I’ve got to be in a with a chance here,” Fordham said.
“But it was serious all along. I’d had girlfriends before, I’d had relationships before, but with Jodie I was like, ‘Okay,’ — and I know it’s cliche — ‘this is the one. Don’t stuff it up.’”
The media power couple now have two children together — three-year-old Freddy and 21-month-old Pearl.
Fordham’s Instagram is full of joyous videos of his kids messing around and gushy posts about his wife.
“I love everything about Jodie,” Fordham said. “I can honestly say there’s nothing I don’t love. I didn’t think there’d be anyone in my life I could say that about.”
Fordham and his wife don’t really argue.
“We might average two or three disagreements a year,” he said. “But the whole thing about don’t go to bed on a fight … I don’t believe in that. When we have an argument we’re both prepared to go all right, go to sleep. Then we wake up in the morning and it’s like it’s a new day.”
He says divorce is not an option for them.
“(It was) a way of saying to Jodie, ‘Listen, we’re in this for the long haul. Nothing you could do is going to drive me away. No matter what happens, no matter what challenges or dramas we face in our life, we’re going to face them together. We’re going to get past them together and we’re always going to be together.
“I know Jodie’s always going to love me. So that’s not really up for debate.
“I’m more worried about the kids falling out of love with me — and you know, not loving dad as much as they love me now — than I am Jodie, because I know she’s rock-solid.”
If you’re wondering whether he knows he’s seriously punching, don’t worry, he gets it.
“I just feel really blessed. I’m clearly punching above my weight, and I know I jagged an absolute winner as far as managing to convince Jodie to fall in love with me and to spend the rest of her life with me,” he said.
“Not a week goes by when I don’t look at her and think, ‘Boy, I hit a real winner there, I really nailed that one.”
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