Martin Lewis was back with his co-star Jeanette Kwakye on Tuesday night for his ITV money-saving show.
ITV’s money-saving expert Martin Lewis had a bit of a scare on live TV when he suddenly fell just as his show was wrapping up.The 52-year-old This Morning financial star was back in action, hosting alongside Jeanette Kwakye and dishing out the latest tips on how to make your cash work harder.
They were deep-diving into how viewers could give their state pension a hefty boost, a hot topic for Brits aged 40 and 73. The dad-of-one was keen to share how you could potentially turn £800 into a whopping £5,000 by topping up your state pension before the window closes in April 2025.
But drama unfolded on the live broadcast when Martin took a tumble. As the show neared its end, he confessed his voice was on the brink after tackling a flood of questions from viewers, reports The Express.
Throughout the episode, he’d been battling a cough, pausing often to sip water and soothe his throat. In an attempt to pass the baton for the final words to Jeanette, he spluttered: “I’m really close to the end on time. That’s it from me. my voice has gone, JK”.
Jeanette showed her concern, quipping: “Oh no! I Was going to ask you what’s going on next week” and couldn’t help but giggle as Martin reached for another drink.
With his voice fading fast, he managed to say: “We’re probably going to be doing wills and power of attorneys and difficult conversations but it may change, I don’t know, we may be doing savings. Let me know which you prefer.
“Thank you to Jeanette, thank you to the audience here, thank you to everyone upstairs. I’m going to lie down, goodnight,” he said, with a flourish, before dramatically collapsing on the floor to applause from the studio crowd.
Earlier on in the programme, his show had already caused chaos online after a mention led to the government website crashing just five minutes into the broadcast.
After a brief advert break, he jovially greeted viewers with “Welcome back. Tonight it’s all about boosting your state pension by possibly tens of thousands of pounds for an urgent deadline.
“I predicted it before the break, the government website that do the checks has gone down, apparently it went down five minutes into the programme. It’s going to struggle, it’s like a denial service error but there’ll be time still to do it. Keep watching and learning what you need to do while you can get in touch.”
Despite forewarning the relevant parties, he conceded on air that even after cautioning them, “no website can cope” with the huge increase in traffic that comes with his guidance.
The response was immediate and vocal, with people flocking to X – the platform formerly known as Twitter – to air their grievances.
In a blend of bewilderment and exasperation, one user posed the question: “Are all government sites gonna crash tonight, this is the pension forecast tool Martin Lewis is currently talking about on screen #martinlewis.”
Another viewer tweeted in agreement: “#MartinLewis caused the Gov site to crash again” Meanwhile, a different user added: “Looks like we’ve crashed the site again @martinSLewis #martinlewis.”