Inside drug past of TV host Alison Hammond’s ‘new boyfriend’
TELLY presenter Alison Hammond’s hunky gardener friend turned over a new leaf after doing time for drugs offences.
Ben Hawkins has been jailed on separate occasions for driving under the influence of cocaine and dealing cannabis.
Sources insisted Hawkins, also sent to prison for attacking a cabbie, was “a changed man”.
One said: “Ben was full of bravado and quite brash. He’s in a far happier place now.”
It comes after The Sun told yesterday of This Morning host Alison’s close friendship with Ben.
Alison, 48, who co-host’s tomorrow night’s Baftas, says she is “willing to marry” but has not named her lover.
This Morning co-host Dermot O’Leary, 49, was first to reveal Alison’s romance in June last year, letting slip that she was a “taken” woman.
Giggling Alison joked: “Can you believe Dermot outed me on the TV?”
Speaking about her fella, she said: “He loves me to bits. He absolutely worships me and massages my feet every single day.
In November, she told a podcast it was “a little bit” love at first sight for her, adding: “I don’t think it was love at first sight on their front.”
Pals of Alison claimed yesterday she was single.
Her spokesman did not comment.
We approached Ben, whose last offence was in 2015, for comment.
Alison, meanwhile, has been signed by Sky for new quiz show, In Demand.