Sue Perkins and Anna Richardson have revealed that they didn’t speak for a long time following their break-up.
The comedian, 54, and the TV presenter, 53, opened up on their split for the first time in a joint appearance on Anna’s podcast It Can’t Just Be Me.
The exes went their separate ways over Christmas 2020 after eight years together and have now discussed their transition from romance to friendship.
They admitted that at first they went through a period of no contact, and Sue told how they had to let go of the ‘excruciatingly painful’ issues they had during their relationship before they could become friends.
Speaking on the podcast, Anna said, ‘We didn’t speak,’ to which Sue added, ‘Yeah, for a long time.’
Sue Perkins and Anna Richardson have revealed they didn’t speak for a long time following their break-up
Sue went on to explain how they managed to become friends after their break-up, saying they had to ‘detonate the familiar’ to rebuild their relationship as friends.
The former Great British Bake Off host also stressed the importance of not looking back on previous arguments and forgiving before moving forwards.
She said: ‘You have to sort of detonate parts of the familiar in order to grow new things, different ways of being, which are born out of friendship. And also, you have to forgive what’s been, don’t do history lessons.
‘Once you get that space, the history lessons stop. What I mean by history lessons is in a row you go from talking about the thing that’s upsetting you in the moment to then tracking back through all the other things in your past, that has been points of inflammation.
‘Our break and split and time apart and everything has meant that we no longer do history lessons. We can forgive and just go, it’s all OK.’
Sue said the path to becoming friends was not all smooth sailing, but said they are now able to talk openly with each other about everything, including their dating lives.
She went on: ‘I think a period of having no contact was good, and then slowly, voicing the things that had been excruciatingly painful and realising that they were never going to be solved, so let them go.
‘If you hold on to those things that made you sad, made you angry, all we’re going to do is replicate that, but in a non-sexual context. So both of us in our own way let stuff go, it helped of course that other things come in, other distractions.’
The exes (pictured in 2012) went their separate ways over Christmas 2020 after an eight years together and have now discussed their transition from being in a relationship to friendship
To which Anna said: ‘That’s certainly what I missed – the love but also the fun. When you’ve got that with somebody, when you go “do you know f**k it, let’s let go of all that s**t”, ultimately our very core is love. We understand each other.’
‘All that love can be repurposed into a friendship, I really believe that,’ Sue added.
After their split in Christmas 2020, news of their break-up went public in June 2021, when it was said that the couple went their separate ways with ‘heavy hearts’.
exclusively revealed at the time that nobody else was involved in Sue and Anna’s decision to split.
A source said: ‘The split is as amicable as these things can ever be. After so long together it wasn’t an easy decision to make and they both did so with heavy hearts.
‘But Sue and Anna are determined to remain friends and keep in touch. Nobody else is involved and now the pair are throwing themselves into work.’
It was reported that Anna had moved out of their shared £2million North London home to live in Staffordshire to be close to her mother, who is caring for her father who is suffering from dementia.
The couple allegedly parted ways after Sue’s reluctance to start a family, with Anna previously revealing she had thought about adopting a child and felt that ‘time is running out’ for her to do so.
A friend of the former couple said at the time: ‘It’s really sad they’ve split, but it’s been on the cards for a while. We know Anna was really keen to be a mother, but Sue just didn’t feel it was the right time for her.
‘She loves travelling and working on various projects and she appreciates that lifestyle and the responsibility of being a parent doesn’t marry well.’
It was also claimed that Anna and Sue struggled to live together during lockdown given they are both ‘workaholics’ who are used to their independence.
Following their split, Anna admitted that ‘you never get used to heartbreak’ and said she was ‘filled with dread’ about the future.
In May 2022, she told OK! Magazine: ‘I suppose I don’t know whether you become more resilient as you get older, but heartbreak is still that mystery that needs to be solved, and how you get over it and become stronger.’
Sue told how they had to let go of the ‘excruciatingly painful’ issues they had during their relationship before they could become friends
After their split in Christmas 2020, news of their break-up went public in June 2021, when it was said that the couple went their separate ways with ‘heavy hearts’ (both pictured in 2018)
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.
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 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.