Much loved nineties telly host Emma Forbes who fronted shows such as Live and Kicking now lives a totally different life in another country where her main focus is health and lifestyle
After bagging a job in the cooking slot on the BBC’s hit children’s series Going Live!, Emma Forbes had secured her place on the nation’s TV screens and in its heart.
Finding fame on the popular show, presented by Phillip Schofield and Sarah Greene, she then went on to co-host the replacement Saturday morning kids’ programme Live & Kicking for three years with John Barrowman and TV stalwart Andi Peters, who has just floored This Morning fans by revealing his real age. It was a huge hit thanks to its entertainment sections, big-name celebrity interviews and games the presenters joined in on.
As well as her hosting talent, fresh-faced Emma was known for her beauty. She was represented by Storm Models – the agency which discovered supermodels Kate Moss and Cara Delevingne. It comes after one huge TV star looks completely unrecognisable as she reveals latest facelift
In 1996 she was voted number 64 in FHM mag’s 100 Sexiest Women poll. Famed for being well-groomed with lusciously thick locks, Emma became the face of shampoo brand Head & Shoulders.
She followed in her mother – actress Nannette Newman’s – footsteps when she hosted a revival of panel show What’s My Line. Nannette had been a regular panelist on the 70s version. Emma also voiced Mummy Hippo in animated infant favourite, Peppa Pig.
As well as her TV credits, Emma has worked extensively on radio. She co-hosted the Heart Breakfast Show alongside Jonathan Coleman and presented BBC Radio 2 shows with Mark Radcliffe and Alan Carr as well as having her own Sunday morning show.
In 2018 the broadcaster and her banker husband Graham Clempson sold their £25 million home in Chelsea, London, and moved to New York. The couple, who married in 1987, have two children together, which is why Emma stepped away from her TV career. They are now grown up and have moved out of their parents’ house in East Hampton.
Emma previously spoke about the family’s move to the US and said she’d always loved America. “We’ve always had a connection with it,” she told Hello!. “I find it an exciting place to live, it ignites my feeling of anything is possible, and it felt right for part two of life with my two children, one on each coast, to be nearer them. So with my own family here that makes it feel like home, and we’ve created a life that works for us all here.”
These days Emma works alongside her fashion designer daughter Lily Clempson and is obsessed with improving her own lifestyle as well as that of others. On her Instagram page she describes herself as a, “trained holistic wellness & nutrition coach with a passion for cooking & healthy lifestyle”.
It’s something she became personally invested in around 2011 as she noticed her body change and wanted to lose stubborn belly, back and bottom fat. She spent the next 18 months turning herself around with an exercise and diet programme.
In 2013 when she was snapped looking incredible in a swimsuit on the beach in Barbados, she spoke about her new regime. Emma revealed she was following the ‘clean and lean’ advice of celebrity trainer James Duigan, whose clients included Elle Macpherson.
“I’ve always been a healthy eater – I used to start the morning with a big bowl of muesli, and snack on bananas and crackers,” she told the Mail. “I didn’t know what I was doing wrong, or why I was flabby.
“James explained that my diet was actually too healthy. I was eating so much fruit and so many vegetables that I got hungry easily – and was tempted to reach for a muffin or some biscuits to stave off the hunger pangs.”
James told her to cut back on the sugary fruit and carbohydrates and eat more protein. Emma believes it reshaped her body and changed the way she ate forever.
She also introduced an exercise programme, despite loathing it. “With the help of a personal trainer, I started a regime. My aim was to work my core muscles and tone my legs and arms. I’m very disciplined. I have three, one-hour sessions a week when I do everything from stomach crunches to weight lifting,” she said.
Speaking on the Lorraine show in 2019, she assured the public she hadn’t ever had any tweakments or work done to maintain her youthful appearance: “There’s no plastic surgery going on here! I’m not judgmental of people that do it, but I am that person that it would go horribly wrong on, so I’m too frightened and I just don’t do it,” she said.
During the interview she also discussed how the menopause had affected her, saying it had made her worry irrationally. “It’s caused terrible anxiety and a loss of confidence. And anxiety over ridiculous things,” she said. She revealed that she was on body identical hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to help with her symptoms.
Just after Covid, in 2021, Emma launched a lifestyle podcast, Life and Soul, in which she spoke to celebrities and professionals about how they coped with the pandemic and what they did to make themselves feel good. Guests included people she admired, such as cooking legend Prue Leith, former Loose Women host Andrea McClean and This Morning’s Dr Zoe Williams.