Gardeners' World host Monty Don called out for behaving differently around wife on TV

Monty Don has been previously called out for "behaving differently on camera" with his wife, Sarah. The 70-year-old Gardeners' World star discussed his television career on the podcast White Wine Question Time. Speaking about filming a new programme with his spouse, Monty admitted that one of his new directors told him that he wasn't acting "natural" whilst on television with her. He explained: "He said, 'I don't know if I can continue doing this', and I said, 'What? What are you talking about?' and he said, 'Because you really can't do what you can do. And it's too frustrating'.

"And I said, 'I really don't know what you're talking about.' And he said, 'You're a presenter. You're not being natural. You're projecting too much. The whole point of this programme is to be natural - you and Sarah at home. It's what you do. Why are you behaving differently on camera?'

"And that was quite a tricky conversation because I thought I had done a lot of work by then. I was being called out because I am good enough, but I wasn't being good enough as I could be... Some presenters do it very, very well."

In a previous episode, Monty described how he first fell in love with Sarah when she was already married to someone else. He described their attraction as "intense" but also admitted that it was "complicated".

He explained: "I don't think it was love at first sight. I think it was intense attraction at first sight. [...] Her husband was someone that I rode with and knew very well, and that was the case for about six months where I'd meet them socially."

Monty then confessed that their attraction grew over time: "I remember thinking in a sort of quite banal way, 'How come that she met him before she met me?' Why's the person that you feel strongly attracted to with somebody else? Marriage or not'."

He added that it was never his intention to take his friend's wife: "It wasn't like I was trying to pinch someone else's wife - there was no question of that," he urged. "She decided that she absolutely didn't want to sort of have an affair.

"She chose me, and it was, for about six months, an extremely difficult, unhappy, tormented setup because he obviously was not very happy with that arrangement."

Monty added: "The point is I've always felt a bit guilty about it, but at the same time there is a kind of ruthlessness. All is fair in love and war. You can't pussyfoot about. If you decide to be with someone and it means breaking up their marriage, you can't then say 'Oh I feel really bad about this.'"

You can listen to Monty's full interview on the podcast here.