Effie Gray and John Ruskin looked like the perfect Victorian power couple: she, bright and brilliant; he, the era’s leading art critic. But behind the portraits was one of history’s strangest age-gap marriages. Unconsummated, uncomfortable, and the sort of story that would make Gen Z turn away in horror.

This week on The Way They Were, Gráinne and Chantal team up with one of Britain’s best stand-ups, Ian Smith, to look at the grottiest couples we've ever looked at on the show.

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Now this is a right royal mess. Before it all went spectacularly wrong. Before Epstein, before the exile, before the Palace decided Prince Andrew should probably just be Andrew: there was “Randy Andy” and Fergie. The cheeky, chaotic couple who briefly made the monarchy look like a Jilly Cooper book. From their whirlwind courtship and tabloid scandals to the toe-sucking! This was a love story that had it all. In fact maybe it had a little too much!

This week, comedian Michael Clarke (Crybabies, Everything Is News) joins Gráinne and Chantal to dive into the doomed romance of the Ex Duke and Duchess of York.

⚠️ Disclaimer: This episode was recorded prior to the recent revelations about Prince Andrew’s formal removal from the Royal Family and Sarah Ferguson’s overly pally prison letters to Jeffrey Epstein.

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This week on The Way They Were, we’re catching up on all the heartbreak, hair dye, and high drama of the celebrity world. Lily Allen’s West End Girl has landed, a sharp, funny, furious record that lays her split from David Harbour bare. We talk through the fallout, the shock, and the pussy palace. Elsewhere, Ariana Grande’s got 'new' hair but no ponytail. What does it mean? Finally we’re checking in on a few of our favourite couples: JoJo Siwa and Chris Hughes (Gráinne’s not convinced they’ll make it) and Sutton Foster and Hugh Jackman (Chantal suspects there’s a touch of the 'David Harbour' about him).

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