Gabby Logan recalls how joining TV world led to ‘self-destructive’ lifestyle
The sports presenter wrote a memoir during lockdown.
Gabby Logan has recalled how joining the world of TV led her into a negative lifestyle, saying: “There was a bit of self-destruct.”
The 49-year-old sports presenter started out in local radio while studying at university before being recruited by Sky Sports in 1996.
Logan, who had also competed internationally as a gymnast, moved to London where her life changed.
She told Radio Times: “There was a bit of self-destruct. I wasn’t abusing drugs (and) I wasn’t worried about becoming an alcoholic, but I didn’t treat myself very well.
“I wasn’t in positive relationships.”
Logan, who now hosts a variety of events and shows for the BBC, said that if she had not pursued therapy she would not today be married to her husband, former Scottish rugby union player Kenny Logan.
She said: “I don’t think I’d be married. I wouldn’t have allowed myself to be in a nourishing relationship.”
Speaking about her father, ex-professional Welsh footballer Terry Yorath’s problems with alcohol, she added: “It really does displace your own sense of worth.
“I felt for a long time, especially in my 20s, like I wasn’t quite lovable enough.
“It’s important to reach a point where you realise it’s nothing to do with you.”
During lockdown Logan began writing her memoir which described how her 15-year-old brother Daniel died while playing football with their father.
It was later found that Daniel had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a heart disease which affects the heart’s ability to pump blood around the body.
Recalling the writing process, she said: “That was a really hard place to start – I was crying by the end of it. I was thinking, ‘I don’t know I’ve got it in me to keep doing this’.”
Read the full interview in Radio Times, out now.
