THIS is the bizarre moment that a tennis broadcast was interrupted by two men discussing Carol Vorderman’s unusual relationship status.
The former Countdown star, 65, has spoken numerous times about her “special friendships” with long-term male companions.
She once had five of these non-monogamous relationships on the go simultaneously, though has now whittled it down to three.
Carol proudly said the ‘no-strings-attached’ set-up has worked well for her since her split from ex-boyfriend Des Kelly in 2006.
But no one expected to hear it mentioned in a live broadcast of a practice session ahead of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart this weekend.
In the field is ex-world No1 Iga Swiatek — joined by her new coach Francisco Roig, Rafael Nadal and Emma Raducanu‘s former trainer.
Swiatek, 24, is not set to play her tournament opener until Wednesday but has already been on site for several days in order to practise.
In a bid to give fans a window into the event, Stuttgart organisers have been live streaming each practice court on the tournament’s official website.
During one stream of a Swiatek session, men could be heard chatting about Vorderman.
Seemingly unaware that they were being recorded, one said: “I saw something recently, Carol Vorderman has just like come out and been like…
“She’s done it right. Because she got her butt done and stuff.”
Asked what Vorderman had “come out with”, the first man continued: “She’s come out and says that she’s in like an open relationship with five or six guys.”
The second replied: “With five or six guys? Good girl. Wow.”
The conversation went on unbeknown to Swiatek or Roig.
Broadcasting of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix is being taken care of by WTA Media, the broadcast partner of the WTA.
But WTA Media are not responsible for practice session streams, which have been shown on the event’s own website.
And commentary for the event is being done from a studio in London this week, not on site.
During an appearance on This Morning in 2022, Vorderman claimed to have “five special friends” while discussing her dating life.
Later asked if she was in a relationship during an episode of the Rule Breakers podcast, Vorderman added: “No! I’m having the best time. I’ve spoken about this once. I have a system which I’ve had for ten years. They’re called ‘special friends’”.
The Countdown legend then added: “I spoke a couple of months ago about having ‘special friends’ and it was like, again, the world had fallen in for some people but actually what I found was there was an awful lot of women who said ‘I’d never thought about it like this’.”
Third seed Swiatek is set to face either Laura Siegemund or Viktoriya Tomova in her tournament opener.
