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Steph McGovern has opened up on her experience of having a stalker, claiming to have been told it was normal for TV stars to be stalked after reporting it at work.
The ex-BBC Breakfast business reporter and host of former Channel 4 show Steph’s Packed Lunch told This Morning on Tuesday, 1 July, that she had written about being stalked as part of her debut novel, crime thriller Deadline, calling it “fun and therapeutic”.
Journalist and broadcaster McGovern explained that she had to tackle the stalking when the man tracked down her parents’ address and sent them a letter asking for her hand in marriage.
What, how and why?
McGovern is best known for her savvy business expertise, but has turned her hand to crime writing in her debut novel, Deadline, which draws on her life experiences for the tense plot. It tells the story of a TV business reporter whose live interview with a politician is hijacked by a kidnapper who has taken her wife and child, and includes stalking and terrorism themes.
The broadcaster, who was BBC Breakfast’s business reporter between 2011 and 2019, told This Morning: “I have had a stalker, so that story is in there, and I’ve never really talked about it before, but it was quite – this sounds weird – fun and therapeutic writing it in a crime fiction.”
As hosts Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley asked her more about being stalked, she revealed: “Weirdly, in telly, when I found out I had a stalker and told my bosses, they were like, ‘oh yeah, everyone gets a stalker at some point’.”
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McGovern said she hadn’t been too worried to begin with, explaining: “This was a guy who just used to turn up everywhere I went. He wasn’t horrible to me, he thought that he was in a relationship with me, so he used to think when I said ‘morning everyone’ on the telly, I was talking directly to him. He used to think when I put things on social media, that was me telling him where to meet me.”
She said he would regularly turn up when she was filming on location, adding: “He’d say, ‘can I give you a lift home Steph, I’ve got your favourite snacks’…I’d think I don’t want to be rude to him because you don’t know what’s going on in his life.”
However, things escalated when the stalker tracked down her parents, a part of the story that she includes in her book.
She said: “The final straw came, my dad rang me and was like, ‘Steph, who’s this fella you’re seeing? He’s sent me a letter’.”
McGovern said that the letter had claimed they were in a relationship and was asking for her “hand in marriage”, which prompted her and her employers to take action.
She said, “That’s what freaked me out. It’s very different having someone be there while I’m broadcasting to then finding out my parents’ address. So that worried me. I thought my mam and dad are going to be dead worried here. That’s when it all kicked in and the BBC security team did their thing.”
The star has previously said that no charges were brought against the stalker, and that he stopped when asked.
What else did Steph McGovern say about her debut novel?
McGovern has published her first novel, but she said that the idea for an on-air news broadcast hijack had germinated for years.
She said: “When I used to do breakfast telly, these shows are long…I’d be out and about…you have a bit of downtime and I used to sit there with my team and say, ‘what would we do if this got hijacked?’.”
The broadcaster said she had enjoyed hearing the different reactions from each team she worked with, ranging from ex-military who thought they would tackle the hijacker to parents of young children who said they would run away. She began to take notes of people’s reactions, which formed the inspiration for Deadline.
She said: “In our career you take in so much, you meet such colourful characters, so it’s been great to write about them.”
McGovern also added that Adolescence star Faye Marsay had read Deadline for the audiobook version, admitting that it had brought her to tears to hear her first book read aloud.
This Morning airs on ITV1 at 10am on weekdays.
