Comedian Michael McIntyre has been happily married for 21 years but his relationship with Kitty Ward nearly came a cropper in the early stages.
The star had fallen instantly for Kitty when they met through a friend, saying: 'She was the girl I had been looking for'. Sadly, his grandmother didn't agree.
"Unfortunately my grandma didn't really like it when I got a girlfriend," he told BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. "She was trying to break us up, which was funny for a while but then it became quite vicious, an untenable situation."
Michael, now 48, wasn't put off in the slightest by his relative's disapproval as he had been smitten from the very first meeting with aromatherapist Kitty. "In the romantic comedy that was my life, this would have made a good ending," he wrote in autobiography Life and Laughing.
"We would fall happily ever after. Within moments of seeing her and chatting to her, I was totally up for that ending. Unfortunately, she wasn't."
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Kitty and Michael have been married for 21 years (Getty Images)
The comedian was instantly taken with his future wife (PA)Thankfully, Kitty didn't take long to change her mind. "We might have kissed on our first date," the star told Jonathan Ross on his chat show. "That was it for me. I announced to everybody that I'm in love and I'm going to marry this girl."
The couple married in Somerset in 2003 and went onto have two sons, Lucas and Oscar. Kitty, who prefers to stay out of the limelight, comes from a famous family.
Her father Simon Ward was an acclaimed actor who appeared in films including 1973's The Three Musketeers and 1972's Young Winston, alongside acting legends Oliver Reed and Christopher Lee. "He was one of my closest friends," said Michael of his late father-in-law, who died in 2012 aged 70. "He would come to my gigs in the early days."
Kitty's sister Sophie Ward is a famous film actress too, appearing in 1985's Young Sherlock Holmes and 2011's Jane Eyre. Sophie is also an accomplished writer.
Kitty's sister Sophie is a famous actress and writer (Getty Images)
Michael on the set of The Wheel (BBC/Hungry McBear/Gary Moyes)Michael's late father was a comedy writer and nowadays his own family enjoy a lavish lifestyle thanks to his estimated £80 million net worth earned from touring, a Netflix deal and his BBC career. In 2020 the couple bought a £10m eight bedroom mansion in London complete with a swimming pool, cinema room and gym and back in 2013 they purchased a £2.5m mansion in an idyllic village in Wiltshire.
Surrounded by gorgeous countryside, tiny Compton Bassett, near Calne, is said to have become a hotspot for stars with singer Robbie Williams paying £8.5 million for a family pad there back in 2009.
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