Anne Hegerty is a big name in the game show world, having been a permanent fixture on ITV's The Chase since becoming the first female quizzer to join the line-up in 2010.
While the 66-year-old, aka 'The Governess', has become a household name across the nation over the past decade, how much do you know about her life off-screen? Keep reading to find out more…
Anne's life before The Chase
Before finding fame as a professional quizzer on The Chase, Anne worked as a journalist. Following a linguistics degree at university, Anne enrolled in a journalism course before working for various local papers.
© ITVAnne later turned to copy editing, proofreading and ghostwriting, penning two books for American children's author Richard Scarry.
When she was 45 years old, Anne was diagnosed with autism after watching a television programme about the developmental disability. After recognising some of the traits in herself, she began to research autism and Asperger syndrome.
© BBCSpeaking about her diagnosis, Anne told The Guardian in 2021: "It kind of helped me just reframe everything. I suddenly found myself more sympathetic to others: 'Oh, I see why people expected me to do that, why that little girl said that, why my mum thought this'."
Anne's love life
Anne, who lives in Watford, has been very open about her love life over the years and is happy as a single woman.
"I think the problem is I find it really difficult to fall in love with real people," Anne previously told The Guardian. "I've thought: am I in love with this guy? And then we kind of get together and I think: damn it, no, oh dear."
© ITVDuring her appearance on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! in 2018, Anne set the record straight about her love life, clarifying that she was not married to a man named Jake Hester, despite what her Wikipedia page previously stated.
"It still claims I'm married to someone called Jake Hester! I seriously don't know who he is," she said.
While she prefers the single life, Anne has plenty of admirers. "Let's say I would not be short of offers if I went looking," she told The Sun last year. "But I am happy with my own company, I've had relationships go wrong precisely because I could not devote the mental energy to it, and I just thought 'No, no, no, this is not a good idea'," she explained, adding: "I find men make such great friends — so let’s keep them like that."
Anne's royal connections
Back in 2022, while appearing on ITV's DNA Journey, Anne discovered that she is a 19th cousin of the late Queen.
© ITVA historian in Edinburgh uncovered that the quizzer is related to a family bearing the surname Hayes on her mother's side, who married into the royal family in the 14th century
It was also revealed that the ITV star is a distant relation of King Robert the Bruce. The King of Scots, who ruled from 1306 until his death in 1329, is her 20-times great-grandfather.
