{"id":10466,"date":"2025-07-21T08:52:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T08:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/10466\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T08:52:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T08:52:11","slug":"richard-osman-was-instantly-smitten-after-meeting-wife-on-house-of-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/10466\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Osman was \u2018instantly smitten\u2019 after meeting wife on House of Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Richard Osman<\/a> has admitted to pining for his wife Ingrid Oliver<\/a> one year before they met on his quiz show House of Games. <\/p>\n

The former Pointless presenter<\/a>, 54, said he was \u201cinstantly smitten\u201d with the actor and comedian who appeared on the celebrity game show<\/a> in 2021 \u2013 and had been holding a flame for her before their first interaction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was aware of Ingrid from social media and thought she was very funny, but beyond a single tweet we\u2019d never communicated,\u201d he told The Times. <\/a>Osman asked their mutual friend Lou Sanders if the actor, known for playing Petronella Osgood in Doctor Who, was available at the time, but she wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwelve months later, in 2021, Ingrid was a guest on my quiz show House of Games,\u201d he said. \u201cThis time Lou told me Ingrid was available, so I spent a long day in front of the cameras desperately trying not to flirt.\u2019<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cUnlike most couples, though, I do have a record of the first thing I ever said to my soulmate: \u2018I\u2019m looking for two rhyming answers. A musical instrument filled with rice played by shaking, and the capital of Venezuela.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIngrid buzzed in \u2013 \u2018Maracas and Caracas.\u2019 I was instantly smitten.\u201d Osman said he \u201cgot her phone number that night and we\u2019ve been in each other\u2019s pockets ever since\u201d.<\/p>\n

The TV star, who has two children in their twenties from a previous relationship, had never been married prior to his relationship with Oliver. The couple moved in together a few months after they met and married the following year in what he called \u201cthe best day of my life\u201d. <\/p>\n

\"CoupleCouple have been married since 2022 after meeting on \u2018House of Games\u2019 (Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Oliver told The Times that she was aware Osman had asked their mutual friend whether she was single.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven then \u2013 and I don\u2019t want to sound stalkerish \u2013 I had an inkling we\u2019d get together later,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love House of Games, so I was excited to appear on the show. We knew we liked each other by that point so it was sort of, \u2018Oh my God, this is actually happening.\u2019 I remember feeling slightly sick and trying not to flirt; no one wants to see that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having worked behind the scenes on shows including Channel 4\u2019s 8 out of 10 Cats, Osman shot to wider fame after pitching the idea for Pointless, which he hosted alongside his university friend Alexander Armstrong. The show was a success when it launched in 2009 and Osman co-presented it for 1,300 episodes before leaving in 2022. In 2017, he started hosting House of Games.<\/p>\n

Osman has become renowned for his bestselling mystery novels, starting with The Thursday Murder Club, which was released in 2019. The book has been adapted into a Netflix film, which will be released on 28 August. It\u2019s produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Chris Columbus. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":["post-10466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}