‘She does recognise me most of the times. Doesn’t quite know that I’m her husband, but she knows who I am’ – Martin Frizell

Fiona Phillips with husband Martin Frizell (Michael Stephens/PA)

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Former GMTV presenter Fiona Phillips thought her husband had kidnapped her because of “delusions” brought on by Alzheimer’s disease, he has said.

The Kent-born journalist, 64, announced in 2023 that she had been diagnosed with early onset dementia, after initially thinking she was having menopause symptoms when she first started experiencing “brain fog and anxiety”.

She has since written a memoir titled Remember When, with the help of her husband, former This Morning editor Martin Frizell, which aims to help others who have been diagnosed with the disease.

Fiona Phillips and Martin Frizell (Jonathan Brady/PA)
Her husband offered an update on Phillips’ condition on Friday, recounting that at times she does not remember that he is her husband.

Speaking on ITV’s This Morning, Mr Frizell said: “She’d love to be here, but she’s got anxiety.

“She’s got a kind of a secondary problem that causes her to be in pain, a lot, a lot of pain, which adds to the confusion. So it’s difficult.

“In the book, there’s a picture of her at the end of our road, picking the most recent picture I took, only a few weeks ago, and she’s looking great, and she’s kind of smiling, and she’s got a coat on and what you don’t know is, she thought I’d kidnapped her.”

He explained that the condition causes “all sort of delusions”, adding that Phillips would get “kind of worked up”.

Mr Frizell added: “She does recognise me most of the times. Doesn’t quite know that I’m her husband, but she knows who I am.

“On these occasions, and it’s not frequent, but every now and then, she’ll want to go home to her parents.

“I haven’t got the heart to say they aren’t here.

Fiona Phillips in 2019 (Ian West/PA)

“What you do is, you say, ‘Let’s get our coats on, let’s get our shoes on’, we go up around the block a couple of times and come back in. And she says, ‘Oh, I’m home now’.”

Alzheimer’s is described as the most common cause of dementia, which is the name for a group of symptoms associated with an ongoing decline of brain function, according to the NHS website.