Alison Hammond returns to This Morning with emotional message to viewers
Alison Hammond has returned to ITV's This Morning sofa following a health scare.
The presenter had been absent from our television screens for a week after she suddenly left the set on Friday (2 October) during a live interview, clutching her chest.
Hammond later took to Instagram to reassure fans that she was getting checked over in hospital.
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She explained that she was having her heart examined and hoped the incident was 'just a little panic attack or something like that'.
The following day, Hammond told her social media followers: "I’m home, I’m safe and I’m feeling so much better. Thanks to everyone at the NHS who did the checks on my heart, lungs, bloods. I’m all okay. It’s all clear.
"Which would mean I had a massive panic attack on live TV. I mean, the shame of it. But it felt very real to me. I’m really new to panic attacks, so I need to learn more about it."
Returning to the show today (9 Oct), Hammond, 51, joined co-host Dermot O'Leary, who announced: "Alison Hammond’s back!"
O'Leary then joked: "Don’t leave me like that again."
"Thank you for holding the fort and thank you to everyone who sent their good wishes," Hammond told him in response. "All I can say is, in that moment, it’s probably one of the scariest things I’ve ever been through."
The Bake Off host went on to compare her scare to one of her favourite TV shows, Stranger Things, claiming the moment she was rushed off screen felt like entering the Upside Down.
"It was a panic attack," she continued. "I feel guilty that I didn’t have a heart condition, a little bit, because it was so much of a fuss."
"I didn’t know. It was the first time I’ve experienced anything like that."
During her latest This Morning appearance, Hammond went on to recall: "Secondly, it was live on TV, so I thought, 'Oh my gosh, my son might be watching'. So I just ran; I ran off TV.
"I would never do that normally, but I just couldn’t catch my breath."
Hammond's latest comments come after right-leaning political commentator Katie Hopkins mocked her scare in a video questioning the attention the TV star had received.
"I may be away from the UK right now, but please just tell me I didn’t just see Alison Hammond on ITV News because she may have had a minor panic attack on TV," Hopkins hit out, going on to make derogatory comments about Hammond's weight.
"And then got immediately rushed to hospital, immediately got put in a hospital bed, I mean miracles upon miracles, and immediately on social media to let people know that maybe, hopefully I’ll be okay."
Hopkins, also 51, then pointed to people living with chronic conditions and terminal diagnoses who she claimed deserved more screentime.
"Could you please have some respect?" she went on. "There’s people out there in the universe with actual conditions, chronic conditions that make their everyday hell, that make them not able to use the stairs or go in a shower alone, or they've overcoming some horrific illness, or they’ve got a terminal diagnosis, and the nation is fixated on a former chumbawomba, who may have had a bit of a d***y moment for two seconds?"
Hammond responded to Hopkins' controversial remark at the time, writing in the comment section: "I’m still a Chumba womba babs!! I thought it was a heart attack it was very scary. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, even you cos you are beautiful on inside and out."
Topics: Alison Hammond, ITV, This Morning, TV And Film, UK News
Rhianna Benson