Tv star Geri Maye has opened up about calling off her wedding with RTE’s Ray D’Arcy, saying that with hindsight she realises she “needed more” that what he could offer her.
In an exclusive interview with our sister magazine TV Now, the former Winning Streak presenter revealed how radio star Ray used to tell her while they were going out that he would never be the man she deserved him to be.
“I used to go ‘Oh don’t be so ridiculous’,” she said. “But I look back and I realise I probably did need more. And I do have the man, that I do deserve to have, now.”
Geri is now happily married to Limerick businessman Peter Collins. She broke off her engagement to Ray 12 years ago, but she also revealed that there is no bad blood between the pair – in fact, they often bump into each other in the supermarket!
“I mean we’re fine, we live in the same area,” she said. “We meet in the shop, and it’s all fine, we meet over the fish counter.”
The reporter on the Today Show said she looks back on their relationship with “gratitude” as she believes her heartbreak over its failure kept her mother going through her sickness.
Geri said that her mother was “slipping away” on the night she admitted to her that her and Ray had cancelled the wedding, but she managed to survive the night and kept going for another four years.
“The oncologist said: “We don’t understand how that happened?’ And I knew it was a mother’s love. She was not going anywhere while this was happening and that was it.”
She also opened up about her crushing Winning Streak axe, admitting she was completely kept in the dark about the blow.
The popular presenter hosted the show with Marty Whelan and was left shocked when she was suddenly replaced by Sinead Kennedy.
She revealed: “One person made a decision and I was told to keep it under my hat. Sometimes there is just connections between people and they make personal decisions in a professional environment.
“I don’t know, but that seemed to be what happened in that scenario.”
A favourite on the game show, she admitted she was “definitely upset” as the programme meant a lot to her.
