Stephen Mulhern has never been married. The ITV presenter turned 49 on 4 April 2026 — four days ago — and has no wife, no confirmed long-term partner, and by his own account, a love life that has taken a firm back seat to his career for the better part of a decade. After more than 25 years on British television, he remains one of the country’s most recognisable faces and, on this particular subject, one of its most private.
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Who Has Stephen Mulhern Been in a Relationship With?
The only romantic relationship Mulhern has ever spoken about publicly was with EastEnders actress Emma Barton. They met in 2008 when both were cast in a pantomime production of Snow White at the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury. Barton played Snow White; Mulhern played a character called Muddles. They began dating that same year and kept the relationship largely away from the press for three years.
When it ended in 2011, Mulhern described it to The Sun as having come to “a natural end.” No falling out was reported. Neither spoke about it in any detail. That explanation, brief as it was, remains the only thing he has ever said publicly about why it ended.
There was a second chapter that rarely gets mentioned. In a 2018 interview with Celebs Now, Mulhern said his last date had been “about four years ago” — placing a short, unnamed romance somewhere around 2014. He gave no name and no details, and has not brought it up since. That, as far as confirmed public record goes, is the full relationship history of one of ITV’s biggest names.
What Stephen Mulhern Has Said About His Love Life
The 2018 Celebs Now interview remains the most candid on record. Asked about his dating life, he told the magazine:
“Last time I went on a date was about four years ago. That makes me sound really sad. I need a life. I need to stop working so much.”
He was also asked about online dating and closed that door quickly: “I think it’s a bit weird someone from the TV doing online dating. I think it’d be bizarre.”
Two years later, in a 2020 interview with The Sun, Mulhern was asked who or what the love of his life was. His answer had nothing to do with romance. “My sister Suzie. Is that a bit weird?” When the conversation turned to intimacy, he was characteristically brief: “Not enough.”
Speaking to The Mirror in the same period, he described his family as the constant in his life: “We’re very close and speak every day. If I have a problem, they are the first people I speak to. We don’t have any secrets.”
The picture those interviews paint is not of a man with no interest in relationships. It is of someone who has let work fill a space that, in his quieter moments, he has acknowledged is empty.
The Josie Gibson Situation — What Actually Happened
On 13 April 2024, photographs emerged of Mulhern and This Morning presenter Josie Gibson walking hand in hand outside a London television studio. The two had been filming the final episode of Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway.
Josie spoke to MailOnline that day and said: “I’m in love with Stephen Mulhern. There you go. But story of my life, I don’t think he loves me.”
The comment, delivered with obvious theatrical intent, set off a predictable round of tabloid speculation. Mulhern addressed it directly on This Morning days later: “She didn’t turn up to rehearsals, I held her hand and I showed her where to stand. That is it. Finito.”
Josie then confirmed their status to OK! magazine: “He’s so lovely. We are really good friends, I really adore him, but there’s no romance in the air.”
Both parties gave consistent, unambiguous statements. The two remain close friends and professional colleagues. Nothing more has been confirmed.
A Difficult Year Before the Cameras Found Him Again
Before Mulhern reappeared on screens in any significant way in late 2024, he had been through one of the hardest periods of his personal life.
His father, Christopher Mulhern, died in early 2024. Christopher had been the person who first taught him magic tricks as a child — the root, by Mulhern’s own telling across many interviews over the years, of everything that followed professionally. The loss, by most accounts, hit him hard.
A few months later, Mulhern collapsed at a Pizza Express restaurant in Berkshire after a severe reaction to a local anaesthetic from a medical procedure earlier that day. He was taken by ambulance to Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey. His spokesperson confirmed the full account to Hello! magazine. He recovered and returned to work, saying very little publicly about either event.
Accidental Tourist Showed a Side of Him Nobody Had Seen
In December 2025, Mulhern appeared in a documentary for ITV called Accidental Tourist. Ant and Dec sent him to South Korea to face his phobias, try unfamiliar food, and step beyond the rigid personal routine that, as it turned out, had shaped almost every part of his off-screen life.
The show aired on 14 December 2025 and became one of the most talked-about things he has done in years. He described himself as “like a 70-year-old man in a 47-year-old body” — a reference to how the show was filmed in 2024 — and said his life had been built around “comfortable repetition”: the same holiday destinations, the same foods, the same fixed habits year after year.
For the first time in his television career, he cried on camera, when a letter from his mother was read to him during filming.
Then came the moment that stopped viewers. A Korean shamanic healer during the show made reference to a serious, undisclosed health incident from around three years earlier — which would place it in approximately 2022, during a period when his absence from television had gone unexplained. Mulhern, visibly taken aback, addressed it directly on camera:
“It was very, very serious. A massive operation. I’ve never discussed anything about my personal health.”
He had never acknowledged it publicly before that moment.
After filming wrapped, he sat with what the experience had given him. His reflection, shared in the documentary: “I realised I’ve missed things. And I don’t want to miss them any more.”
ITV commissioned three additional specials on 8 January 2026.
Where Stephen Mulhern Stands in April 2026
Mulhern is 49 years old, unmarried, and living alone in a four-storey townhouse in Chiswick that he purchased for £1.6 million. Hello! magazine reported there are no known reports of a current partner. His net worth is estimated at around £5 million, built across television contracts, live performance work, and brand partnerships over two and a half decades.
He continues to present Catchphrase and Deal or No Deal on ITV. You Bet!, which he co-hosted with Holly Willoughby in December 2024 and then fronted solo for You Bet! On Tour across the autumn of 2025, was axed by ITV in February 2026. Further Accidental Tourist specials are expected later this year.
On the question of whether Stephen Mulhern will ever marry, there is no answer to give — because he has not given one. What he has given, in South Korea in front of an ITV camera, is the most honest account of his private life he has ever put on record. He has missed things. He said so himself. Whether that admission leads somewhere different from the last ten years is not something anyone outside his family home in Chiswick is likely to know before he decides to say so.
