Ben Shephard reveals wife's brutal four-word response to his fitness transformation

At 50, This Morning’s Ben Shephard works hard to maintain a physique that still sees him gracing the covers of men’s fitness magazines. It’s been a lifelong obsession, he admits to The Times: “When I was 17 I thought, if I’ve got abs then girls might be interested in me."

But it seems that Ben’s gym-honed body isn’t something that impresses Annie, his wife of over 20 years, who dismisses his photos by brutally telling him: "AI’s amazing these days."

In response to polls suggesting that he’s a major sex symbol, Annie kept Ben humble by quipping that the legions of women who lust after him “don’t know how awful your feet are.”

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He says that Annie, who works as an interior design consultant, probably wouldn’t let him hang his framed Men’s Health covers on the walls of their home in the affluent London suburb of Richmond. “It’s something I’m incredibly proud of but I don’t need to have it on the wall to remind me,” he says.

“Annie knows how important [the challenge] was to me personally but she couldn’t be less interested.”

Annie’s never expressed any interest in him being a “six-pack cover model,” Ben says.

“The first thing she said when she saw the photos was, ‘AI’s amazing these days.’ As long as I’m happy and can put the bins out on time, and help with matching up socks and putting them away, and be with family to enjoy each other’s company…'"

Ben adds that Annie has always been tolerant of the demands that his career places on their family life – even to the extent of having to postpone their honeymoon because of a potential job offer. “She’s always been understanding about those kind of things,” he says.

Ben, along with co-presenter, Cat Deeley, was seen as a “safe pair of hands” to get This Morning back on track after a turbulent period that saw his predecessor Phillip Schofield leaving “with immediate effect” after his “inappropriate” relationship with a 20 year-old ITV production assistant was made public.

Not long after the Schofield scandal broke, the ITV show’s other presenter, Holly Willoughby, went through a horrifying stalker ordeal that led to her departure.

The two off-screen dramas were followed by a reported dramatic drop in the programme’s viewing figures, currently estimated at around half of the 996,000 peak that were tuning in to watch the Willoughby and Schofield pairing.

Ben himself is reluctant to be drawn on the show’s viewing figures, and says his workouts help him push any worries to the back of his mind. He explained: “My meditation is when I’m running, in the gym or I’m pushing stuff physically.

“That’s when my noise stops because I’m singularly focused on one thing. The by-product of that is I feel great and can cope with all of the things going on in my life.”

If nothing else, Ben is finally considered a success by his family thanks to a running joke in Coronation Street, with quiz-obsessed character Mary Taylor’s crush on him: “It’s amazing, not least because my Auntie Jan, who’s 83 and lives in Cornwall, only ever felt I’d made it when I popped up in Coronation Street.”