Lowri Turner

Lowri Turner
Born	31 December 1964 (1964-12-31) London, England, UK
Occupation	Presenter

Lowri Gwyneth Turner (born 31 December 1964) is a British television presenter, journalist, nutritional therapist and hypnotherapist.

Personal life

Born at The Greycoat Hospital, Westminster, London, Turner was born to Welsh parents Mervyn and Shirley in London, England in 1964. She was one of triplets and her mother had a traumatic birth resulting in her sister having a learning disability. She has been married twice and has three children. She has two children, Merlin (b.2000) and Griffin (b.2003) with her first husband Paul Connew, and one daughter Ariel (b.2007) with second husband Nicol Batra from whom she is also divorced.

Work

Turner began her career as a fashion journalist for The Observer and became Fashion Editor at the London Evening Standard. Her television career started on GMTV in 1993. Turner was a contributor to Thirty Years in the TARDIS, a documentary celebration of the 30th anniversary of Doctor Who in 1993, in which she discussed the Edwardian feel to the Doctor's costumes and her fondness for Jon Pertwee's portrayal of the character. She made appearances as a celebrity panelist on BBC2's quiz show Going, Going, Gone (TV series), Channels 4's Whose Line Is It Anyway and has presented the shows Looking Good, Shopping City, Housecall, Would Like To Meet and DIY SOS. In 2004, Turner took part in the reality TV show, Celebrity Fit Club but, despite this, she still at times struggles with her weight. She has been a regular panelist on the Channel Five show, The Wright Stuff since 2002, delighting in describing herself as a "hard working mother" and seeking to climb the moral high ground on any number of topics. Turner writes a column for the Welsh newspaper Western Mail.

Turner describes herself as a Nutritional Therapist citing a 'Diploma in Nutritional Therapy' purchased from the "Institute for Optimum Nutrition", which describes itself as a "an independent, not for profit educational charity". ION's founder's only qualification is the diploma he awarded to himself, and courses currently have no academic accreditation. The three year diploma course costs £3500.00 for the first year alone. She also states that she is a trained hypnotherapist. On her web site, VaVoomHealth, she declares that her ability to help is because "For the last 20 years, I’ve been a journalist, writing for newspapers and magazines, including the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard. The Observer, The Guardian, Grazia and Top Sante. I also appear regularly on TV and radio, including Woman’s Hour, The Wright Stuff and BBC Breakfast.".

She adds that "My journalistic expertise means I am a sceptic. I am not interested in any sort of airy fairy, stick a candle in your ear and say ‘Om…’ malarkey. I will not tell you to eat fennel twig tea and brush the soles of your feet anti-clockwise with an organic loofah." In the future she hopes to engage in relationship counselling, drawing on her own extensive experiences.

Controversies

In 2006 Turner was criticized in the Welsh Assembly over homophobic comments she wrote in her column in the Western Mail entitled However much I love my gay friends, I don't want them running the country

Gwenda Thomas, chair of the Welsh Assembly's equality committee, said

Homophobia, together with all other forms of prejudice, is unacceptable in any modern, democratic, civilised society, and it is therefore disappointing to say the least that an article that promotes such attitudes appeared in a newspaper that purports to be 'the national newspaper for Wales. She is disgusting in her views.

. Turner was further criticized in 2007, for an article she wrote in the Daily Mail newspaper. Some claimed her piece, about her newborn daughter who is of mixed race, was racist.