KATE Garraway said her husband Derek’s eyes filled with tears after her National Television Awards win and said he “understands everything”.
The Good Morning Britain star, 54, took home the gong in the authored documentary category for her ITV programme Finding Derek at Thursday night’s ceremony.
She Facetimed her husband, who is still seriously ill following his battle with coronavirus last year, immediately after and he was delighted by the result.
Kate said: “He reacted and his eyes filled with tears, and I know that he knows. And it’s tribute to him that he wanted to go ahead with the documentary for everyone else.”
The broadcaster also updated viewers on Derek’s condition and said that while he still can’t communicate, he does understand what is going on.
She said: “We are very clear now that he understands everything really.
“He can’t respond as he wants to and he can’t communicate still, and that must be a desperate battle for him as it is for so many people who can’t get out their thoughts into the world.”
Derek, who has been receiving round the clock care at home since being discharged from hospital in the spring, has undergone a series of tests in the past week.
Kate said he spends most of his days sleeping anywhere between 20 and 24 hours a day, but he had to be alert for the latest checks.
She said: “Right at the end of that day they were doing some very basic breathing tests, and they asked him to hold his breath and release his breath really hard in a particular way, and I just thought ‘wow’.
“He did absolutely everything they asked of him.
“Maybe a lot of it is projection, if I’m honest, but it does really feel that way.”
Kate previously called her awards win “bittersweet”.
Proudly presenting her gong on the breakfast show on Friday, Kate told viewers: “Thank you so much to everybody for voting, it means everything and as I said last night, this is for everyone really.
“I think the reason why it did so well is because everyone has a slice of this in their life. This is for everyone going through the pandemic, let’s keep going and celebrating joy.”
She went on: “It’s very, very tough – it was bittersweet, last night he was not well enough to come – not any question of it. I was in such a daze and didn’t expect to win, I went on stage completely bewildered and struggled to get my words out.”
The documentary followed Derek’s gruelling battle with coronavirus, which he was hospitalised with in March 2020 before spending over a year in intensive care.
Finding Derek was a moving account of his year in hospital as Kate continued working on GMB while caring for their two children.
Derek’s body was ravaged by the virus, with his kidneys failing, his liver and lungs damaged and his heart and pancreas malfunctioning.
