New Cat Deeley fear that's left shattered Patrick Kielty in 'very dark place': Insiders tell GRANT TUCKER shock rumour that's exploding in TV world after incident... - suong

For the locals of Dundrum in Northern Ireland's County Down, there has only been one topic of conversation this week: the breakdown of the 13-year marriage of their most famous export, Patrick Kielty, to his This Morning presenter wife Cat Deeley.

There is much concern for Patrick, or Paddy as he is known among this most tight-knit of communities, following the split.

For those who know the Irish presenter worry it could rip the father-of-two's world apart, with some even fearing Cat could move back to the US, where the family lived previously, taking their children with her. As one remarked: 'Everyone is worried about Paddy. The fear is that Cat will go back to America with the little ones. That will leave him in a very dark place.'

But rumours Cat could ditch her This Morning job and pack her bags for the US once more are not confined to the Northern Irish enclave.

Indeed, they are even being whispered in the corridors of ITV's White City HQ, with Cat's colleagues wondering aloud what this means for their once most-prized catch.

In 2024, she was hailed as the saviour of the ailing show, which had seen viewing figures plummet following Phillip Schofield's dramatic fall from grace, after he was caught lying about an affair with a much younger colleague, and then the departure of golden girl Holly Willoughby.

Yet television insiders have remarked: 'Cat's time on This Morning has not been a failure, but it has hardly been a roaring success.

'It is a job which puts her under so much scrutiny, day-in and day-out, and unlike most British presenters she has plenty more lucrative options to choose from in the States.

'There is concern that all of this family drama could lead her to walk away.'

Cat, 48, and Patrick, 54, had lived in Los Angeles for over 14 years, where Cat presented the reality TV show, So You Think You Can Dance, for which she was reportedly paid £43,000 an episode.

My insider also notes that all is not rosy at ITV at the moment, with budget cuts to daytime shows and hundreds of jobs under threat, which could make a move back to the US even more tempting.

'There is not a happy atmosphere at the place right now,' they said.

While This Morning will be shielded from the harshest of the cuts, the show will certainly feel the pinch as it has been forced to cut back on outside broadcasts and Hollywood interviews.

They are also set to move from their White City base to a smaller, cheaper studio in central London.

Cat has also been open about her struggles to adapt to the 5am starts for the four days a week she presents This Morning, and has revealed that it led her and Patrick to sleep in separate beds most nights.

Additionally, she has spent thousands of pounds on hypnotherapy to help with insomnia. 'I know it's a bit kooky, but I'd tried everything else,' she said. 'Magnesium, salt baths, pillow sprays, sleepy teas, meditation, breathing exercises.

'I've just come to terms with it now and as long as I get four hours, I'm OK.'

Fans in Ireland, where Patrick is a huge star in his own right as the £215,000-a-year presenter of The Late Late Show, were the first to spot that all was not well in the marriage.

The couple have spent the past 17 months like ships in the night, with Cat working Monday to Thursday on This Morning, and Pat travelling to Dublin on Wednesday or Thursday, in readiness for his Friday night show, and then also hosting Saturday mornings on Radio 5 Live from a studio in Northern Ireland.

While he is a regular sight in Dundrum, his wife's appearances have been a rarity.

The last time TV's golden couple were spotted by villagers was last Christmas when Cat's parents, Howard and Janet, travelled over from her home town, Birmingham, for a big festive family get-together with Patrick's mother, Mary, and his brothers.

Yet three months later when Mary died, Cat shocked locals when she didn't make an appearance at her funeral but was on-air presenting This Morning. Such was the backlash, her team felt compelled to issue a statement: 'Cat remained at home to be there for her two young children before and after school on this very sad day.'

A colleague of Kielty's at Irish TV station RTE, where they are 'fiercely protective' of their 'loveable' star since he joined in 2023, told me that her absence was a talking point.

'Everyone thought it was unusual that she didn't go to the funeral and neither did the kids,' they told me.

'That doesn't really happen in Ireland. I mean a lot of people from here went up. It didn't go down well.

'The kids seem to spend a lot of their summers in Ireland as well and loved their granny.'

But it wasn't the first time Cat's absence had been noted by Patrick's colleagues.

Last year he told the Late Late Show production team his wife might attend a live recording of the Friday night show. The insider told me: 'She never came during his first season and a few people were slagging him off [teasing him, in Irish slang] about it – he said she might come. But she never did.'

Like many of Patrick's colleagues in RTE's entertainment department, the source has never met Cat.

'They had this kind of separate lives thing going on because he was working here, but you know we thought they were a close-knit family. We didn't think they were actually living separate lives.'

However, they added that now 'a lot of things make sense'.

'I suppose because people knew from the beginning that he was here for part of the week and she was in the UK, you didn't look at it too closely.'

No one would blame Cat for questioning whether this is really what she signed up for when she joined This Morning with much fanfare in March 2024, on a reported £550,000 yearly contract, after being lured from America to replace Holly Willoughby.

Holly had quit the show after a dramatic souring of relationships with Schofield and also the drama of being the target of a sinister kidnapping plot.

There had been much hope that Cat's pairing with co-host Ben Shephard would turn the crisis around, but the pair have not gelled as well as Holly and Phil, or even Richard and Judy, ever did.

The million viewers who tuned in for their debut last year have now dwindled to fewer than 700,000.

When she signed her contract with This Morning, which is up for renewal in spring 2026, Cat made it clear that her commitment to the show was very much on her terms.

'If it gets too much for me, I'm going to quit,' she recently remarked in an interview. 'I don't need to do it. I could stop and be a mum for most of the year, and then go and do the shows in America.'

And being a mum to her two young sons Milo, nine, and James, seven, is undoubtedly what the presenter most wants to do given the turmoil in her private life, as stated in the joint statement she and Kielty put out this week.

They wrote: 'We have taken the decision to end our marriage and are now separated. There is no other party involved.

'We will continue to be united as loving parents to our children and would therefore kindly ask for our family privacy to be respected.'

It was a sad end to a two decade-long relationship which first began as friendship when Cat and Patrick presented Fame Academy together in 2002.

They remained friends for almost a decade before it became romantic and made their debut as a couple in March 2012, marrying just six months later in a traditional Catholic ceremony in Rome, Italy, in September 2012.

Much of the blame for the breakdown of their marriage has been put squarely on their highly unusual work schedules.

A source said: 'On Wednesday and Thursday nights, Patrick could often be seen at Dublin's Connolly station taking the Belfast train north.

'It [his routine] is not the same every week, but mostly he would be here from Wednesday until he leaves after the show.'

Patrick admitted that the set-up was not ideal, saying: 'We probably could have timed it better in terms of the juggle.

'I've always said that this is a dream job for me.

'For Cat, This Morning is one of the biggest jobs in TV over there. So, for the two of us to be doing two big shows like that is kind of mad.'

Their return to the UK was not just for work reasons, however. They'd moved back in 2020 and eventually bought a £5million, five-bedroom house in London's leafy Hampstead to renovate for their young family.

The catalyst for them leaving, according to Cat, was a terrifying incident in Los Angeles in 2019 which saw Patrick and son Milo caught up in a gun incident at the city's Century City mall.

He'd picked him up from nursery one morning and taken him for a milkshake when they were forced to hide in the kitchen after being told a gunman was in the shopping centre.

Cat recalled the incident last year, saying that people were told to lie behind the counter and pushed into toilets, adding that there was screaming and crying.

Patrick kept his son distracted with Peppa Pig videos on his phone, before calling Cat to come and pick them up.

She said: 'He wanted to keep Milo calm, so I didn't understand the enormity of what was happening.

'As I was driving, I began to see helicopters, news vans, firemen and Swat squads.'

For Patrick, who was just 16 when his own father Jack was shot dead in 1988 by the Ulster Freedom Fighters, the lingering trauma must have been immense.

A year later, the couple and their two US-born sons moved to London.

Yet, cracks soon started to appear. Patrick spoke candidly, about how at times he was left feeling like an unequal partner in their marriage, commenting on a podcast: 'For a long time I thought I was in a 50/50 partnership, and then you realise you're actually a junior shareholder… Why do you seem to have more shares than me?'

And Cat talked about how stressful she was finding a huge renovation project at their home, while also missing the Californian sun.

No wonder the news of their split has everyone questioning whether she will return to the States.

'She is hot property in America and could have her pick of lucrative gigs with a less punishing schedule than This Morning, which would leave her more time to spend with the kids,' said my TV insider.

The rumours have not gone down well with the locals of Dundrum. Villagers have remarked on seeing up close the loving relationship between Patrick and his boys, and they love to play with their cousins Harry and Jack there.

Last year, Patrick hired a campervan for a staycation around County Down

and even introduced his eldest, Milo, to Gaelic football at his local pitch, which meant a lot to him for a very special reason.

'The pitch is named after me aul fella [father Jack],' Patrick said. 'When your son's playing GAA [Gaelic Athletic Association] on a pitch named after your aul fella, sometimes you have to take a wee bit of time and just smell the flowers and go, 'Wow, this is a moment'.'

The chat-show host is due to return to The Late Late Show in September, but with his personal life in crisis, no one knows for how long.

'If that happens [Cat moving back to the US] I would say that is the end of Paddy on the Late Late,' one local said.

'He loves those two fellas and would do anything to be near them.'