Patricia Gloria Goddard was born in London on 23 December 1957, the daughter of Agnes Fortune, an auxiliary nurse from Dominica, and an unknown father.

She worked there as a television presenter, most notably on ABC's The 7.30 Report, and also as a host of the children's program Play School.

In 1998, after returning to the United Kingdom, Goddard became the host of an ITV flagship daytime chat show, the BAFTA-winning Trisha, produced by Anglia Television.

In 2003, a specially-shot clip of her show appeared in the ITV religious fantasy drama The Second Coming.

The episode showed the director telling Trisha to stay on Betty and wait until she revealed her secret.

Her show was also featured on a Comic Relief episode of Little Britain where the character Vicky Pollard met up with her long-lost father.

For a What Not to Wear Christmas special aired on 22 December 2004, Goddard was given a fashion makeover by Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine.

Also that year, she began to make occasional appearances on the American talk programme Maury as a consultant and a guest host.

On 20 October 2011, NBCUniversal Television Distribution announced that it would launch an American version of her eponymous talk show to start in September 2012.

They were the first couple voted off after the judges chose to save ITV News presenter Lucrezia Millarini and her skating partner Brendyn Hatfield.

Her youngest sister, Linda, battled schizophrenia and died in 1988 from complications arising from self-inflicted injuries.

[8] She has also suffered her own mental health issues, having battled addiction and attempted suicide on at least two occasions.

Her first marriage was to Robert Nestdale, an Australian politician and erstwhile director of Unicef Australia; whom she met in 1985 whilst working as a flight attendant.

[11] In January 2022, Goddard posted on Instagram that she and her partner of four years, whom she often colloquially refers to as 'Boo', had got engaged.