Many food-lovers' weekends start with James Martin's Saturday Morning on ITV - and today's guests include much-loved comedian Johnny Vegas. The Merseyside star is arguably one of the most recognisable faces in comedy, but how much do fans really know about his life away from the cameras?
Johnny Vegas, 51, who was born in St Helens, where he still lives now, is well-known for his portrayal as Geoff Maltby aka 'The Oracle' in ITV sitcom Benidorm from 2007 and 2009 and from 2015 to 2017. Before then, he'd starred in the BBC Radio 4 sitcom Night Class and BBC Three's sitcom Ideal.
His TV debut was in 1996 when he was a contestant on the game show Win, Lose or Draw under his real name - Michael Joseph Pennington. Whilst in the competition, he spoke of wanting to become a comedian under the stage name of 'Johnny Vegas'.
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Johnny has been married twice - first tying the knot to TV presenter Catherine 'Kitty' Donnelly in August 2002. Their relationship was on and off over the space of six years.
To poke fun at other celebs selling off exclusive pics of their weddings to magazines for high sums, Johnny sold pictures of their ceremony to adult comic Viz for £1. At the time, he told the Manchester Evening News that the move landed him in hot water with his then-new wife's family.
"My wife's granny bought Viz and said it was filth," he admitted. "She told me: 'Your wedding photos are next to a comic strip of a lad with unfeasibly large testicles'. It put me 10 steps back with my in-laws."
Johnny and Catherine share 18-year-old son Michael Pennington Jr, who bears an uncanny resemblance to his old man. Explaining why the youngster didn't appear with his dad on the 2020 series of Celebrity Gogglebox, Johnny, who instead starred alongside his personal assistant and close friend Beverley Dixon, told GMB: "He’s a 16-year-old in lockdown, he’s wired in, he’s got the headphones in.
"He’s actually quite shy and I think he’s at that self-conscious stage, which is a shame. Bev’s a bit more vocal and obviously, we’ve known each other for ages."
Following his divorce from Kitty, Johnny then married TV producer Maia Dunphy, 45, in 2011. Maia is familiar with the world of showbiz as she reached the final of Celebrity Masterchef: Ireland in 2013 and Dancing with the Stars in 2018.
They share a six-year-old son, Tom, who lives with Maia in Dublin following her and Johnny's split in 2020. The pair had initially split in 2018, but reconciled later that year, before splitting for good.
Speaking about their separation, Maia told the Irish Mirror in early 2020: "Johnny and I are not together now. It’s difficult and heartbreaking and a source of daily sadness for me.
"It’s something I am deliberately nebulous about because I don’t want it to define Tom [the couple’s son] or me, and I don’t want to talk publicly about it. Like many people in the same situation, I’m just doing my best to get on with life under painful circumstances."
Johnny opened up in 2013 about how he relied on drink to perform his alter ego, The Mirror reports. Writing in his autobiography - Becoming Johnny Vegas - he admitted at one stage, he was drinking two bottles of vodka a day.
“Drink would encourage Johnny out and that was the only time my fear of stand-up went away,” he said. “I am very proud of what Johnny achieved in stand-up comedy because he believed entirely in giving an audience the best kick he could.
"But he was someone who was quite detrimental to my health, both emotionally and physically.” The comedian, referring to his persona in the third person, continued: "Johnny had a theory that if you counted how much you were drinking, you weren’t enjoying it.
“He never kept track but he could go on drinking for hours. I was ill with nerves before going on. As Michael Pennington I’d build up during the day, hoping to coax Johnny out of his box.”
Once Johnny became a father for the first time, it made him want to take back control. "I thought, ‘My son doesn’t deserve Johnny Vegas as a dad’," he added. "I didn’t want him thinking that was the norm. It was the start of a hard battle.”
