Carol Kirkwood, 62, has been brightening up BBC Breakfast with her warm and welcoming weather forecasts for years. However, behind the sunny exterior, the presenter has battled storms of her own – including the emotional pain of not having children of her own.

“I always wanted to have children. That was my dream,” she told OK! Magazine. The BBC star said she even looked into fertility treatment before the costs of the process became too “overwhelming”. She admitted: “It was a source of heartbreak, but we tried and failed.”

Carol, who grew up as one of eight siblings, has channelled her warmth into being a very present aunt to her 15 nieces and nephews, whom she “loves incredibly”.

In recent years, the star found love again after her 2008 divorce from ex-husband Jimmy Kirkwood, who was a former field hockey player.

In 2022, she delighted fans when she announced she was engaged to her partner Steve Randall, a former police officer. The duo live in Buckinghamshire and recently got married in a private ceremony, with a beaming Carol sharing some snaps from the special day on social media.

Opening up about heartbreak, she explained: “You know how it feels when somebody doesn’t love you any more and moves on, in the same way that you’ve probably done to somebody else, when you’ve been honest and said, ‘I think you’re great, but romantically, it’s not going anywhere.'”

Carol added: “When you’re heartbroken, you cry a lot, you feel sorry for yourself and you think, perhaps, you’re going to spend the rest of your life on your own, and then you don’t. You come out of that. You grow.”

While the absence of children remains a difficult subject for Carol, she seems to have made peace with it. She’s thriving at work and appears incredibly smitten with her husband.

BBC Breakfast airs daily on BBC One and BBC iPlayer from 6am.