was left red-faced as wife regaled fans with an embarrassing story of how her husband tripped and decided to ‘crawl to the toilet’ rather than stand up the first time they met.
The football legend, 44, and reality star Kate, 31, were married in 2019 and are expecting their second child together, having welcomed son Cree in 2020.
Kate is also Lorenz, 16, Tate, 14, and 11-year-old Tia, with his late wife Rebecca Ferdinand, who died in 2015 from breast cancer.
The influencer hosts , which explores the reality of being part of a blended family, and has also written a children’s book about the subject.
While Blended can tackle some difficult subjects – such as Kate admitting she from Rio or her step-children on her first year with them – there are also plenty of .
One such moment came on the most recent episode of the podcast, which saw Kate collapse into tears of laughter as she revealed the reason behind her nickname for her husband – The Peckham Crawler.
A fan had asked how she and Rio first met, and she explained she was out with friends and the footballer simply came and sat at their table.
And as soon as Kate asks if Rio remembers ‘the bit where you fell over,’ he knows what’s coming, warning ‘that was a bad, bad moment.’
‘Rio was drinking and …’ Kate began to tell listeners, before he jumped in to insist: ‘It wasn’t actually because I was drinking too much. I would’ve done this stone cold sober.’
‘You were going to the toilet and you tripped, you fell over, and it’s where I gave you the nickname Peckham Crawler because he didn’t stand up. Let me add, he crawled to the toilet,’ Kate revealed as her eyes shone with tears of laughter.
‘Yeah, I crawled to the toilet. I was pretending it was my move,’ an embarrassed Rio recalled.
‘I don’t know what happened. Something just came over me to crawl,’ he said, adding he ‘doesn’t know’ how his and Kate’s relationship ever progressed further than that.
Kate, who was also on her way to the ladies toilets in the bar, was ‘so confused’ and was left on her own thinking: ‘People don’t do this.’
The husband and wife descended into giggles again remembering the story, with Rio trying to explain himself by asking: ‘You know when you’re crawling and like, you think, “How do I get up?”
To which Kate responded: ‘What does that even mean? “You know when you’re crawling.” People don’t crawl!’
The footballer-turned-pundit said that after he fell he was desperately thinking of a way to ‘get up from here and remain calm and cool and still have a chance of getting your number,’ and at that moment crawling seemed like the best option.
‘It was a 20 yard crawl.’
Kate admitted she wasn’t sure if when he emerged from the toilets again he would still be crawling – but thankfully he wasn’t, and the future couple were laughing ‘hysterically’ together straight away.
Six years, two biological children and a blended family later, the couple are as strong as ever, with Kate recently in tears as eldest child Lorenz moved out of home to pursue a football career.
The 16-year-old is believed to have signed a contract with Brighton & Hove’s under-18’s team, following in the footsteps of his football icon dad.
In a previous episode of Blended, Rio described how Kate was ‘crying’ when the teen moved out of their Kent home, before she explained: ‘I was devastated when he moved out. I miss him so much. We still see him twice a week but I miss him so much and that’s taken a lot of getting used to.’
The family have come a long way since the first year together, when Kate revealed she was left devastated by not receiving a mother’s day card after she had been living with the family for six months.
‘Although I wasn’t a biological mum, I kind of felt like I’d taken on the mum role. For me, going from living at home on my own to taking the kids to school, cooking them dinner, I felt like a mum.’
She revealed that she didn’t say anything to Rio at the time, as he had lost his mother and the children has lost their mum Rebecca, ‘so I just went in my room and I just sobbed my heart out,’ and felt ‘selfish’ for wanting a card.
She added to anyone listening to the podcast who might be in a similar situation: ‘Anyone that’s kind of new in this situation might feel like that because it’s a weird one.’
