Sue Perkins ‘splits from girlfriend Anna Richardson after eight years of dating’

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Sue Perkins and Anna Richardson have reportedly split up after eight years together.

The former Great British Bake Off host, 51, and the Naked Attraction presenter, 50, are said to have parted ways last week.

A source told The Sun: ‘It’s really sad. Both Anna and Sue are devastated.

‘We’re all hoping they can patch things up and sort out their differences but for now it appears to be all over.’

The pair first began dating in 2013 after meeting at a Halloween party following Anna’s split from her partner of 18 years Charles Martin. 

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Sue Perkins and Anna Richardson for comment. 

Speaking to The Telegraph in 2015, Anna explained she had known Sue for years, but it was a meeting her at a party after her separation from her partner of 18 years, Charles, that made her realise she felt something more than just friendship. 

She gushed: ‘When I was invited to the party, I was told Sue would be going and I felt, what, a frisson? A spark of interest? And I thought: “Hmm, that’s interesting”. There was something in the air. 

‘It was an extraordinary night. I was dancing on the table. It felt like a defining moment in my life.’ 

She wasn’t keen on giving herself a label in regards her sexuality at the time, after she had previously spent almost two decades with a man. 

‘For me, it’s just a case of I am who I am. I’m not interested in being labelled gay or straight, my sexuality is fluid. I just happen to have fallen in love with a woman – simple as that,’ she explained. 

During an appearance on Lorraine at the time she gushed about her girlfriend, lifting the lid on their romance further.

Anna said: ‘I had known Sue on the circuit, but about a year and a half ago we met at a party and I was recently single and we just… all I can say is there was an understanding between us, and for me the planets aligned and I just thought, this person – it’s not even about a woman – this person is absolutely extraordinary.’

She also explained that her religious parents were very understanding, although she was initially worried as her father is a vicar and her mother is a teacher of Religious Education.

‘My Dad’s a vicar, my Mum’s an RE teacher so you would think ‘this isn’t going to go down very well’ but actually they were really, really open to the whole thing and they can see that I’m happy.’ 

Anna previously spoke about her relationship with Sue in an interview with Hello!, saying she had thought about adopting a child and said that as she is getting older she also feels that ‘time is running out’ for her to do so.

Admitting she was only talking about herself, Anna said: ‘For some time I’ve toyed with the idea of fostering or adopting a child. 

‘I can only speak for myself, not Sue [Perkins], but I really want to do the training [to foster] and welcome a child into my life.

‘I feel keenly that I’m getting older, that time is running out.’

In 2015, Sue gushed of meeting Anna: ‘There was something sort of magical in the air, absolutely there was, we have a real laugh, and that’s what I want, I want joy in my life and I’m lucky to have it in abundance.’

In a previous interview with DIVA magazine, Anna described the pair as ‘just two middle-aged girls toshing about the flat.’

However, she added that Sue’s Bake Off fame was sometimes ‘tricky’ for them to deal with.

She added: ‘When we are out] and people do the whole hysteria thing about Bake Off. That can be tricky.’  

Anna also spoke about dating a woman after previously being in a relationship with a man, saying: ‘The sexual adjustment is easy, the emotional adjustment is something else, as you know, a relationship with a woman is far more intense. This I have learnt. It’s an emotional tsunami.’

Asked if it was tough to admit to being in a relationship with a woman after dating a man for almost two decades, she added: ‘Do I think it takes a certain type of person to go, f**k it, I’m going to give it a go, regardless of what other people may think about it? Yes I do.

‘I feel extremely comfortable in the company of women.’

Speaking to The Guardian, Sue previously said of Anna: ‘She is much less chaotic than me and has done quite a lot to still the gyroscope of my whirring brain.’ 

In 2017, Anna revealed at the Edinburgh TV Festival that she was left devastated after doctors told her she would struggle to conceive.

She explained that she had agreed to have fertility tests in 2008 as part of Channel 4 series The Sex Education Show.

However, when the doctor broke the news to her that she was ‘completely infertile’, she learnt that her director – who was pregnant – had already ‘phoned the office’ to tell them the results. 

Anna, who at the time was in a relationship with film director Charles, said the experience was an example of presenters making themselves ‘very vulnerable’.

She said: ‘I thought, “F*** it, I’m in my 30s, I’ve got tonnes of eggs, I’m fine”. And off we went to this fertility clinic. My director at the time was pregnant and she went in to speak to the doctors and I was stood outside for ages and ages with the crew. 

‘I knew something was going on. Eventually the doctor appeared and said, ‘Can I have a word with you?’

And she took me to one side and she said, “I’m really sorry but you’ve got nothing. You’re completely infertile”.

‘And the thing that I still cannot get over is that my director had phoned the office and told them before I had got the news that I couldn’t have children.’

She later explained: ‘I thought I’ve got all my eggs and a full head of hair. I’ll be fine.’

However, she has admitted that she is considering adopting alongside Sue, as she went on: ‘I am sad that I haven’t had babies. I can’t speak for Sue but I’m considering looking at adoption and creating our own little family. It’s important.’ 

In 2015, Sue revealed a benign grown on her pituitary gland had sadly left her infertile, with the growth diagnosed during filming for her hit BBC show Supersizers eight years ago.

The star was devastated when she found out the growth affected the production of reproductive hormones, leaving her unable to have children. 

In a chat on ITV’s Lorraine at the time, Sue spoke out on the added pain she endured when her doctor insisted not being able to have children would be ‘easier’ on her because she’s gay.

She explained: ‘It was very difficult…you’re a woman, it’s hard-wired into our DNA.’ 

‘Who knows, I might have been able to have kids had I undergone the treatment, there are some hardcore meds that you can take, but it was at that point in my life where I was cusping anyway on being perhaps a little too old.’