Lizzie Cundy claims she 'made a call' to Ashley Cole to set him up with Meghan Markle

Lizzie Cundy has claimed that she tried to set Meghan Markle up with footballer Ashley Cole before the Suits star met Prince Harry.

The presenter told This Morning hosts Ruth Langsford and Eamonn Holmes that she “made a call” to the footballer, after the former actress reportedly told Cundy that she wanted “a British boyfriend.”

“She said, ‘I want a British boyfriend,’ so I said ‘What, a celebrity?’ and she went, ‘Yeah, why not?’” she told the married presenting duo.

“Did you say then, Eamonn’s married?” Holmes joked in response.

“I said ‘Eamonn Holmes unfortunately is already taken,’” with Langsford adding: “Sorry Megs, got there before you!”

“But I did actually say, ‘Do you like footballers?’ because they were on my phone,” Cundy added. “I said ‘Do you want to have a look through?’

“And [I thought] Ashley Cole - because he’d just split up from Cheryl - and they looked quite similar, they were dark, petite.

“I said ‘He might like you.’ I was getting that together! I made a call to Ashley saying ‘What do you reckon?’ and he was like ‘Who is she?’”

In an article published in 2017, shortly after Markle’s engagement to Prince Harry was announced, journalist Katie Hind said that the actress had asked her about Cole’s reputation four years previously.

Markle reportedly asked her if she “kn[ew] this guy, Ashley Cole,” adding: “He follows me and he keeps trying to talk to me on Twitter. He’s trying really hard.

“He wants to go out on a date while I’m over here in London. What do you think? Do you know him?”

Discussing her encounter with Markle in an interview with The Sun earlier this week, Cundy claimed that the pair kept in touch but never met up after news broke of her relationship with the Prince.

Cundy suggested that Markle had been “advised to end contact with people she befriended in the media.”

This Morning airs weekdays on ITV from 10.30am