TV favourite Ben Shephard became emotional live on Monday’s edition of This Morning as he reflected on his son Jack’s 19th birthday with rare comments about family life

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Ben Shephard became emotional live on Monday’s edition of This Morning(Image: ITV)

Ben Shephard became emotional on This Morning as he made rare comments about his wife and son. The TV star, 51, has been married to Annie Shephard since 2004 and the pair are parents to Sam, 21, as well as 19-year-old Jack.

Back in his usual slot as host of ITV’s flagship magazine show on Monday alongside co-host Cat Deeley, he was on the verge of tears as he opened up about Jack’s birthday over the weekend.

He said: “It was Jack’s 19th birthday on Saturday. I know I don’t look old enough!” When Cat asked how his wife was, Ben explained: “Well, I was thrilled to bits because he was down in Bristol with his brother so he wasn’t anywhere near us.

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Ben couldn’t believe 19 years had passed since his youngest was born(Image: ITV)

“They had a big party, but it’s that moment where…a friend of ours messaged us saying that 19 years ago, Annie held Jack in her arms for the first time.

“It was quite a moment, like…’Wow, he’s got so big so fast!’” The Tipping Point host then quipped: “But they weren’t home, so it was brilliant, and the house was tidy! We had a very nice weekend.”

Towards the end of last week, Ben shocked his co-stars on This Morning by revealing that his family would often be naked around one another when his kids were growing up.He made the admission after Britain’s Got Talent judge Amanda Holden said that she once cooked a Sunday roast dinner while nude in front of her husband and teenage daughters.

Discussing Amanda’s confession on the ITV show, Ben said that he would do the same. When asked by Gyles Brandreth whether they would cook naked in the kitchen with their kids, co-host Cat said: “My kitchen lighting isn’t suitable for that. I need a much more low-level, maybe a candle on,” she said, laughing. Meanwhile, 51-year-old Ben said, “Yeah – why not? Come on. We’d have a laugh,” leaving Gyles open-mouthed.

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Ben has occasionally shared family updates on social media

He added: We go cliff jumping together, it’s never been an issue. The boys are 20 and 18 now so we’re probably all a little bit more discreet but growing up, if people weren’t naked over the weekend, we hadn’t had a normal weekend!” Ben doesn’t tend to say much about his family life but did reveal last year during an item about children flying the nest that he and his wife had found it hard when his eldest had moved to university.

He said: “We’re struggling with this as well in our house. I think one of the things we do when Sam’s gone back to uni is we organise to actually do something so they’ve gone, so we’ll go out for a walk or go out for a drink or go out for dinner and we will distract from the fact the house is suddenly quiet.”

Cat was on the same page, commenting on how the silence can stir up a sense of sadness, to which Ben replied, highlighting the stark contrast in the household: “It’s enormous I’ve got men living in my house and it’s really annoying they take up so much space and when they’re gone the sofas are empty there’s not as much mess.”

He went on to say: “So we try and go out and do something together, reconnect and then try and come back and it doesn’t seem quite so empty I think.”