TV’s Gloria Hunniford has revealed “magic makeup” allowed her to return to work after a nasty fall.
The 82-year-old Loose Women star didn’t leave the house for three weeks after tripping over a rug and landing on a wooden floor at her home in Kent.
She said she’ll “never forget the slap of my face on the ground” and was left with an “eye full of blood” as she landed so hard she broke her eye socket.
It looked so bad at the time, Gloria was worried she would “terrify” the neighbours if she went out.
And it even forced her to pull out of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations back in June, which she was “devastated” about.
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But she credits her make-up artist friend with helping her get back to work after the “nightmare” experience.
The cover star of the September issue of Prima told the magazine: “My eye was full of blood and I was black, blue and yellow.
“Then one of my make-up artist friends brought me this magic make-up, which they use to cover tattoos on film sets.
“It’s allowed me to get back to work, which is lucky as I’m not good at taking time off. I’m fortunate that I have a job I truly love, which stimulates me.”
Despite being in her eighties, the TV favourite – whose career spans more than 60 years – says she has no plans to retire.
If anything she wants to work more and wouldn’t say no to having her own chat show again if it was offered to her.
She said as long “as she has energy” she will continue with her career and would be bored if she had to “sit around reading” every day.
After starting out as a singer in her native Northern Ireland back in the 1960s, Gloria carved out a successful career in TV and is now one of the UK’s longest working presenters.
She had her own TV chat show, Sunday Sunday, on London Weekend Television, and appeared on numerous shows including Gloria Live, This Morning, Songs of Praise and The Masked Singer.
Open House with Gloria gave Channel 5 some of its highest ever ratings.
Gloria was also the first woman to have her own daily radio show, which she presented on BBC Radio 2 for 12 years until 1994.
Since 2010 she has co-presented Rip Off Britain, Loose Women and has won several prestigious awards including TV Personality of the Year, Radio Personality of the Year and a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Sadly her daughter Caron Keating, who was also a TV presenter, died of breast cancer in 2004 aged just 41, leaving behind sons Charlie and Gabriel, who are now 28 and 25.
But Gloria says they still speak about Caron all the time to keep her memory alive.
She shared: “There’s a phrase that’s really important to me: ‘People never die if they live on the lips of the living.’ Therefore I always talk about Caron, especially to her two boys.
“As a family, we celebrate everything, whether it’s her passing, her birthday, Mother’s Day or Christmas. We raise a glass to her all the time."
The family also set up the Caron Keating Foundation to help raise money for cancer charities.
*The September issue of Prima is on sale from August 11.
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