{"id":313398,"date":"2025-12-13T05:48:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T05:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/313398\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T05:48:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T05:48:09","slug":"mary-portas-candidly-reveals-her-brother-is-the-father-of-her-son","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/313398\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary Portas candidly reveals her brother is the father of her son"},"content":{"rendered":"

Retail expert Mary Portas has revealed her unique family <\/a>setup in an emotional appearance on Jamie Laing’s Great Company podcast. She discussed her son Horatio, and disclosed that her brother Lawrence is the biological father.<\/p>\n

The 65-year-old broadcaster made it clear that her brother did not have a relationship with her former wife <\/a>Melanie Rickey, but the couple wished to ‘have a bloodline’. She revealed: “Mel decided she wanted a child, and I was very clear that I wanted to have a bloodline.”<\/p>\n

Mary also has twins Mylo and Verity from her previous marriage to Graham Portas, reports The Mirror<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I wanted, if I was going to have another child, I wanted to make sure that it was related in some way and biologically related to my other kids.”<\/p>\n

She went on to describe the “particular bond” she has with her younger brother Lawrence, and knowing he “didn’t particularly want to have children”, she approached him about becoming her sperm donor, reports the Mirror.<\/p>\n

“He looked after me,” she recalled. “It was a real symbiosis. And Lawrence turned up to the old donor place and said, ‘Done it, sis!'”.<\/p>\n

Mary further noted that her son Horatio, whom Mel carried and gave birth to in 2012, bears a striking resemblance to her family.<\/p>\n

“Lawrence lives abroad now, but he rings us regularly and they talk about football,” she continued.<\/p>\n

“God, it’s so boring!” Mary became visibly moved as she recounted the moment Lawrence first held Horatio. “The most beautiful time is when, you know… he came into the world and I rang Lawrence and Lawrence turned up and picked him up,” she explained.<\/p>\n

“And it was like, it was his gift to me. God, I get emotional. It was his gift. And it was the greatest gift. Why the greatest gift?” Jamie enquired. “Oh my God, you know, like because of the years that we helped each other,” she responded.<\/p>\n

“You know, I was always his big sis, and then he was able to give me this gift.”<\/p>\n

Social media users were swift to weigh in on Mary’s unconventional family arrangement. One observer questioned: “That is still quite a weird family setup. Is it his uncle or his dad?”.<\/p>\n

“I consider myself open minded but that is very strange,” another mused. “I’m confused and can’t get my head around this,” a third confessed.<\/p>\n

Yet others rallied in support of the unusual setup. “I would have 100% put this option on the table if my ex and I had got this far,” one individual revealed.<\/p>\n

“I wanted to be genetically related to the baby that she would carry from her egg. I think it’s beautiful that her and her brother have that relationship.<\/p>\n

“For all the people saying this is weird or odd, I am donor conceived and in my community this is actually considered to be the most ethical way of having a donor conceived child,” another countered. “They will always know the donor, they will know how many siblings they have, they will know his medical history and the non genetic mother will have a genetic connection to her own child (as the genetic aunt).<\/p>\n

“What a beautiful gift to give to your sister,” a third praised.<\/p>\n

Join Edinburgh Live’s Whatsapp Community here <\/a> and get the latest news sent straight to your messages.<\/p>\n

The Mary Queen Of Shops presenter and Melanie Rickey parted ways after 17 years as a couple and have since sold their joint \u00a35million north London property. Fashion journalist Melanie welcomed their son Horatio six years ago – conceived using Mary’s brother Lawrence’s sperm – and the duo upgraded their civil partnership to marriage in 2014.<\/p>\n

Addressing their separation in a joint statement, the former partners emphasised no third party was involved. “After 17 years together we have decided to separate. There is no one else involved,” they said.<\/p>\n

“We have spent the last year consciously managing our separation in as good-heartedly, open, and mature a way as possible to ensure a smooth, amicable evolution for us. We remain a family, and are committed co-parents to three wonderful humans (plus Walter the dog! ) who are our priority. We remain good friends, and will share much together going forward.”<\/p>\n

A source close to the pair told the Sun at the time: “In the end they decided they were better off as wonderful friends.”<\/p>\n

Mary began her relationship with Melanie in 2003. Prior to this, she was wedded to Graham Portas, the father of her two grown-up children. Their 13-year union concluded that same year. The television host and ex-government consultant discussed her journey of realising her true sexuality when she fell for her future spouse. <\/p>\n

“It wasn’t a case of, ‘Ooh, I’ve been thinking about Linda Evangelista.’ So in one way, it was just about Melanie. But there was a sexual attraction. I do love women. What surprised me after was that so many women are fluid in this way. I’d meet them and they’d say, ‘I was married, now I’m with a woman’,” she elaborated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Retail expert Mary Portas has revealed her unique family setup in an emotional appearance on Jamie Laing’s Great…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[124581,124578,96,59,124579,124582,6630,124576,124577,124580,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-313398","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-biological-father","9":"tag-brother-lawrence","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-gb","12":"tag-graham-portas","13":"tag-horatio","14":"tag-jamie-laing","15":"tag-mary-portas","16":"tag-melanie-rickey","17":"tag-sperm-donor","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}