Kate Garraway announces huge job offer after GMB star's crippling debt

Kate Garraway was burdened with debts including a formidable £700,000 tax bill after her husband Derek Draper's tragic death in January, nearly four years on from the start of his battle with long Covid. After closing her late husband's company, she faced a mammoth tax bill.

However, her luck has now changed, with the Good Morning Britain star receiving a contract so lucrative that she joked she'd have to sign speedily, before the company changed its mind. She's secured a new two year contract with Smooth Radio, meaning she'll be presenting the morning entertainment show for the channel until at least 2026.

An ecstatic Kate filmed the exact moment she was presented with the contract, with the Instagram video see her asking incredulously: "How long for?" When a member of her team confirms she's contracted for two years, she mischievously quipped: "You fools, you fools!"

"That's really, really good, where do I sign? Sign it quickly before they take it back!" she exclaimed. "You're stuck with me now for another two years, thank you for listening."

The news comes after years of heartache for Kate, with her looking on helplessly as husband Derek continued to decline. He spent more than three months in an induced coma after being struck down with coronavirus.

At first, she'd had high hopes for his recovery, but after 13 months in hospital, it became clear his condition wouldn't improve.

He continued to have health scares over the years, suffering life-threatening conditions such as sepsis and a heart attack as a complication of his illness, before finally dying in January this year.

Despite earning an estimated salary of more than £500,000 per year from GMB alone, her enormous pay packet was dwarfed by the medical bills for Derek.

She explained in her documentary, Derek's Story, "We are entirely reliant on extraordinary carers but the system in which they work in unbelievably complicated, and underfunded, and trying to meet an impossible need."

In another scene shot prior to his death, she anxiously revealed: “Derek’s care, the basic needs, not including any therapy, which I am happy to pay on top, is nearly £4,000 a week.

"How can I afford that? How can anybody afford £16,000 a month? Please God, there could be another 40 years of this!"

Although she is still reeling from the loss of her husband, with whom she shared two children, the tide has turned for her with the news that her Smooth Radio contract will be renewed.