Helen Skelton’s relationship status has been one of the most searched questions about the BBC presenter since her marriage to rugby player Richie Myler collapsed in 2022. Right now, in March 2026, she is single — and she has said so herself.
Speaking to The Mirror in February 2026, just days before Valentine’s Day, Skelton shut down months of speculation about a romance with her Morning Live co-host Gethin Jones. “We just work together, we are not together. No, no, no. We are just work friends,” she said. “They printed pictures of us at work and that we are together because we are at work together.”
On her broader dating life, she was equally direct: “I just take each day as it comes, nothing more to say on that.” When pressed, she laughed: “I do not know if they have made him yet!”
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Is Helen Skelton Dating Gethin Jones?
No. And both have made that clear.
When The Mirror asked Skelton in February 2026 whether she and Jones had been on any romantic dates, she replied: “No. Well, he is in Manchester working away, so yeah, no, all good.” She has consistently described Jones as a colleague and a longtime friend, nothing beyond that.
Jones, 48, appeared to confirm his own single status on Morning Live around the same time. During a conversation about relationships with guest Christine McGuinness, when the topic of being single came up, Jones interjected with “join the club.”
Days after that, Jones was photographed on a ski trip to Morzine in the French Alps with a group of friends that included 29-year-old Sky Sports presenter Pien Meulensteen. It was a group trip, but it made one thing obvious — Jones and Skelton were not spending their time off together.
Two Years of Speculation: How the Rumours Built
The Gethin Jones story did not appear from nowhere. It grew steadily across 2024 and 2025.
Skelton and Jones have known each other for 25 years. Both are former Blue Peter presenters — Jones hosted the programme from 2005 to 2008, with Skelton joining the show shortly after his departure. When Morning Live relaunched in January 2024 with the pair as full-time co-anchors, their warm on-screen chemistry and obvious ease with each other quickly caught viewers’ attention.
By March 2025, the two were sharing considerably more than just a sofa. They took on Gethin and Helen’s Wheely Big Challenge for Comic Relief — a gruelling 24-hour non-stop roller-skating marathon that kicked off on 20 March 2025 as part of Red Nose Day, celebrating Comic Relief’s 40th anniversary. Despite falls, blisters and a sleepless night on wheels, the pair pushed through and raised over one million pounds for the charity. Afterwards, Skelton posted a tribute to Jones on Instagram that many read as more than a professional thank-you:
“My dear Gethin Jones. You are some man. I do not publicly say often enough how much love and respect I have for you, my friend, because I assume it is well known. For the record, you are a legend and I am beyond grateful to have you by my side.”
In June 2025, the pair were photographed at a luxury spa near Jones’s home in Cheshire — around 110 miles from where Skelton lives in Cumbria — with a suitcase. Neither issued a comment. The following month, the Daily Mail published pictures of Skelton riding on the back of Jones’s motorbike in Manchester as the two headed out for breakfast. Around the same period, Jones was spotted on celebrity dating app Raya during a trip to Australia to watch the British and Irish Lions, suggesting he was not in a committed relationship with anyone.
Through October and November 2025, the pair appeared together at the Daily Mirror Pride of Britain Awards and the Royal Television Society Awards in Manchester. At the RTS event, Skelton wore a red halterneck dress while Jones stood beside her in a tuxedo. Her Instagram caption: “Grateful. Lucky to work with some legends.”
Then came February 2026, and Skelton’s first direct, on-record denial.
The Post-Divorce Rumours Before Gethin Jones
The Gethin Jones chapter was not Skelton’s first brush with romance headlines after her marriage ended.
After reaching the final of Strictly Come Dancing 2022 alongside partner Gorka Márquez — losing out to Hamza Yassin and Jowita Przystal — Skelton joined the Strictly Live Tour in early 2023. The Sunday Mirror reported she had grown close to Italian professional dancer Vito Coppola on the tour bus, with the two spending time together away from the rest of the cast.
Skelton was teased about it live on her BBC Radio 5 Live Sunday show. When her newsreader Steve quipped on air: “Just looking at the papers… the front page of The Mirror is interesting,” Skelton laughed and replied: “Put the papers down, thank you.” Nothing was ever confirmed.
She had made clear from early on why she signed up for Strictly in the first place. “Sometimes you just need to jump on the opportunity and chance to put a big smile on your face,” she said.
The Richie Myler Divorce: Where the Story Begins
To understand Helen Skelton’s personal life over the past four years, the split from Richie Myler is where everything starts.
Skelton announced in April 2022 that Myler, then a Leeds Rhinos rugby player, had left the family home just four months after the birth of their youngest child, Elsie. The couple also had two sons, Ernie and Louis. Her Instagram post was short: “Very sad to say that Richie and I are no longer a couple. He has left the family home. We will be doing our best to co-parent our small children.”
In her 2023 autobiography In My Stride, she opened up about the emotional fallout. “I was in shock. I know that following break-ups, people often say they did not see it coming and it sounds like a cliche, but that was me,” she wrote. She also reflected that a major house renovation she had taken on during lockdown may have caused her to miss warning signs as the marriage deteriorated.
When her father noticed she was spending long stretches alone with the children, he drove from Cumbria unannounced to be with her. Despite everything, Skelton refused to delete old photographs of herself and Myler from Instagram: “I want them to know that we loved each other, but things change and that is OK too.”
The divorce was finalised in early 2024. Myler has since had two children — Olivia and Freddie — with Stephanie Thirkill, the daughter of Leeds Rhinos president Andrew Thirkill.
Helen Skelton’s Relationship History at a Glance
| Partner | Period | What Happened |
|---|---|---|
| David Graham (Scottish footballer) | c. 2006 – 2008 | Split after Graham was caught sending messages to model Louise Meighan |
| Richie Myler (rugby player) | 2011 – 2024 | Married December 2013, divorced early 2024, three children together |
| Gethin Jones (TV presenter) | Never confirmed | Longtime friend and co-host; romance denied by Skelton in February 2026 |
Helen Skelton in 2026: Life on the Farm
Skelton now lives on her parents’ dairy farm in Cumbria with Ernie, ten, Louis, eight, and Elsie, three. She stepped back from her Sunday morning BBC Radio 5 Live programme to spend more time with her children, while continuing to front Morning Live, Countryfile and Channel 5’s Springtime on the Farm.
She has spoken honestly about her outlook since turning 40. “The only thing you can be sure of is that the sun is going to rise and the sun is going to set. Accepting that everything changes is really quite liberating,” she told HELLO! in 2025.
She has not closed the door on a future relationship. But she is not measuring her life against one either. “I do not see myself as a victim. There are a lot of people who have been in my situation who have not been given the opportunities that I have got.”
For someone who has faced a very public heartbreak, rebuilt her life in the Cumbrian countryside and had her name attached to more than one set of romance rumours in the space of three years, her answer to the question of whether she is dating anyone in 2026 is the same as the one she gave The Mirror just weeks ago: “Life is good.”
Updated: March 2026
