dark beige

She is leaving the show after 15 years and halfway through a £1.5m contract, a decision widely reported as allowing her to spend more time with family.

But the 47-year-old told the Sunday Times that her worsening dementia had prompted her decision. She said leaving GMTV is "the hardest decision I have ever made".

Phillips told the papers that she had found it hard to cope with the demands of balancing her career and family when her mother Amy suffered Alzheimer's in the years before her death. She died two years ago and Phillips spent most of her weekends travelling to the family home in west Wales in the years after the initial diagnosis, leaving her exhausted after a week of 4am starts.

And then recently, she learned that she had also been diagnosed with the illness. "I keep forgetting words and it's so sad because I was such an active, intelligent woman with an opinion on everything," she said.

Phillips said the strain of looking after both parents, along with the demands of childcare, marriage and her rapidly deteriorating mental health has made her realise "you cannot do it all" and had prompted her career rethink. "I'm 47 and my mum was in her late fifties when she developed Alzheimer's, so I am very aware that I have beaten her 'record' by ten years, which makes me proud. I must admit that it has contributed to my feeling of time flashing by. Why slog away getting up at 4am when you might not remember your own name in the way you want to later on?"