Earlier this month, Loose Women star Janet Street-Porter announced she had tied the knot with her partner of 27 years – marking her fifth marriage.
In a surprise statement, the 79-year-old broadcaster joked: ‘I finally did it. I saved the best til last’ as she confirmed she had wed Peter Spanton in Great Yarmouth on Saturday, January 31.
The ITV daytime chat show star shared the happy news on Loose Women last week, with her co-stars offering their well wishes to the newlyweds, whose dog Badger was also present for the big day.
‘So happy for you both,’ Coleen Nolan wrote and Brenda Edwards added she was ‘was so excited to hear the news’.
Before she met Peter in 1999, Janet had been married four times previously.
Reflecting on track record in 2009, she told The Guardian: I’ve been married four times and lived with a lot of blokes – I know how men’s minds work.
‘What have all the men I’ve been with got in common? They’re all pathetically grateful.’
She has largely kept her longtime romance with Peter away from the public spotlight, all the way up to her lowkey wedding in January.
So, here’s the rundown on who Janet has been married from her first husband to now.
Who is Janet Street-Porter’s husband?
Peter Spanton
Peter Spanton is a former restaurateur who owned London-based bar and since-closed Clerkenwell restaurant throughout the 80s to the early 00s. He’s also an entrepreneur who created Peter Spanton Drinks.
His company sells ‘premium mixers created for those who seek something beyond the ordinary’.
The pair rarely make public appearances together, and when appearing on Loose women on February 10 to spill the details of her wedding, her co-stars shared their astonishment at the secret wedding.
As Janet explained: ‘I didn’t tell anybody at all.
‘Peter and I have talked about it a lot. I mean, we’ve been together for like, 26 years. We’ve been through so much. And I suppose in the end, we talked about it. And then I’d always thought, you know, it’s embarrassing.’
In the end the event was only attended by four guests, with Janet adding: ‘I got myself in a complete state the day before. I was shaking. I was so nervous.’
Although she has been coy about her relationship with Peter over the years, she has been open about her experience with love.
In 2020, she spoke about why she decided to live away from her partner while appearing on Lorraine.
She said: ‘What I do is,I see my partner from late on Thursday to Monday morning and that’s quite enough of him and the dog,’ joking that she ‘interrupts’ his and the dogs quality time together.
Who are Janet Street-Porter’s past husbands?
David Sorkin
In 1997, Janet, then 50, married 27-year-old David Sorkin at 3:30am in a Las Vegas wedding which lasted until the turn of the millenia.
She once said on Loose Women about the age-gap romance: ‘My first three marriages ended in very amicable divorces. It was only number four that I’ve airbrushed out. That was a bit of a mid life crisis and a cry for help.’
And she reiterated her regrets on her recent appearance on the show, adding: ‘I’ve been married a lot of times before. The last one was a big mistake on my part. That was, you know, when I was 50. And I guess I thought, it’s embarrassing.’
The pair divorced after 14 months of marriage when, as described the The Guardian, ‘he squirted her with salad cream during yet another argument’.
She added about her serial monogamy:’I think throughout most of my life I’ve been afraid to be by myself. I can do it when I walk, but being alone in the house – I can only do one night.’
Frank Cvitanovich
Two decades earlier, in 1979, Janet walked down the aisle to marry Canadian filmmaker Frank Cvitanovich (19 years her senior).
He was best known for his Emmy winning documentary Bunny (1972) about the true story of his terminally ill young son.
The pair divorced in 1981 after two years of marriage, with Janet sharing their relationship shifted after his son died.
She told The Guardian at the time: ‘After that, Frank couldn’t really bear to be near children. He nearly cracked up and I felt I had to nurse my husband through severe depression, and then that marriage sort of fizzled out.’
Although it is also believed their partnership came to a shocking end ‘when he found her with a lover, Tony James of the group Sigue Sigue Sputnik.’
Tony Elliott
The journalist married Tony Elliott, founding editor of Time Out, in 1974 after she was caught having an affair with him by her first husband. They divorced in 1977.
‘I didn’t give Tony any options. One minute he was a single man running Time Out, living the bachelor life, the next I was there with all my luggage.
‘I should have got a flat and lived by myself, because it’s not a good idea to move straight in with your lover,’ she shared in her 2006 memoir, Fall Out.
During their short-lived marriage she was made deputy editor of Time Out but struggled to be taken seriously by her colleagues.
Eventually, it came to a head during a massive row after she was discovered having yet another fling, with a friend in America.
Tim Street-Porter
Winding the clock all the way to the start, we have her first marriage to ex-husband and photographer Tim Street-Porter, who she met aged 19 while the pair were studying architecture.
In 1967, she ran away from home to marry Tim and they had a happy marriage together for several years until she was caught having an affair with the aforementioned Tony in 1974 which led to their divorce.
According to her memoir, when they were found together, Tim issued her a 10 minute ultimatum to leave with him which she didn’t meet.
‘What a stupid way to end my marriage. I’d been married for nearly seven years to a man I still really adored. The only trouble was I seemed incapable of being faithful to him,’ she wrote.
In the end, the pair reconciled and retained a friendship, with her explaining her decision to keep his surname by saying: ‘I kept his name because that had been my first by-line and it was a hell of a lot better than (née) Bull.’
She also revealed she had had several affairs during their marriage, including actor John Hurt and the tailor Doug Hayward to name a few.
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