Lisa longed for a baby with Ant. To find out on Mail Online he’s having a child with his new wife broke her heart again
As it emerges Ant McPartlin is to be a father at 48, friends of his ex-wife say...
One friend tells me: ‘Lisa went through hell for the last two years of that she and Ant were together. She wasn’t sure if her marriage would survive, but she stood by him to try to save him. It has been so hard for her.
‘Ant had been in such a bad way that she often feared the situation was untenable.’
Friends said that Lisa begged her husband to seek professional help and had pleaded with him not to leave their home when he wanted to go out drinking.
‘It was a very difficult time for Lisa, it went on for a very long time. She loved him deeply and wanted to get him better – but she was open with her friends that she didn’t see how the marriage could survive. But she made her vows and she wasn’t going to give up on those. Lisa did a lot for Ant. She tried pretty much everything she could to help, but it just carried on and on.
‘It was the hardest thing for her to give in and admit the marriage was over. She’s a wonderful woman who was determined to save her husband. She’s so brave.’
In 2017, Ant finally sought help and went into a rehabilitation centre. But it was too late for their marriage, however. Six months later in March 2018, Ant’s life hit a new low when he was arrested and charged with drink-driving after his Mini collided with two other cars, in West London. Ant, who at the time was reported to earn £130,000 (€152,000) per week, was fined £86,000 (€100,000) and banned from driving for 20 months after pleading guilty to drink-driving.
He said he was ‘truly sorry’ for driving while more than twice the legal limit.
Witnesses described how his black Mini collided with another Mini Cooper before driving straight in front of an oncoming BMW, with a doctor and her nine- year-old son on board.
Although no one was seriously injured, the driver of the other Mini was said to be in ‘deep shock’ and said they believed they could have died in the accident.
Ant later pulled out of hosting ITV reality series I’m A Celebrity alongside Dec in Australia, making way for Holly Willoughby to take over temporarily.
While Lisa, despite being offered a multitude of opportunities to tell her side of the story, has remained silent on the matter, their split remains acrimonious – and ongoing.
He may have two new dogs, Maltipoos (Maltese and poodle crossbreeds), called Milo and Bumble, but Ant still won’t let Lisa have Hurley full-time.
The pair agreed to share the dog after their marriage collapsed, but Lisa wants Hurley to live solely with her. However, it is understood Ant is refusing to give up shared custody.
Currently, the dog spends half the time at Ant’s €7 million mansion in Wimbledon, South-West London, and the other half at Lisa’s West London home, with the TV presenter’s chauffeur reportedly doing the handover so the exes don’t have to see each other.
A make-up artist friend added: ‘Lisa is one of the strongest women you can imagine, but a couple of years ago cracks were showing and she wasn’t herself so much.
‘It was clear back then that there were problems that were getting her down, but she didn’t want to give up on Ant.
‘She has been to hell and back over the past couple of years. We all just wanted to scoop her up and give her a big hug.’
If ever there was a time that Lisa needed one of those, it’s now.
PERCHED on the edge of a bed, in a room he had no business being in, Lee Tomkins strummed a guitar and hit notes that have held him spellbound ever since. He was last week announced as Aslan’s new singer, with the much-loved band also revealing a number of dates in March and April as they return to the stage for the first time since the death of Christy Dignam last June.
The loss of such a towering figure – not just in the group but in the history of modern Irish music – carried a large emotional toll for the bandmates he had trooped with, through good times and occasional turbulent ones, for more than 40 years. It also had inevitable practical consequences too, as guitarist Billy McGuinness acknowledges.
‘When Christy was first diagnosed with cancer, I went to see him in Beaumont Hospital and I said, “That’s it, that’s the end of Aslan”,’ he recalls. ‘Fast forward and two years later we were back gigging in the Olympia. ‘Since then, I’ve never written Aslan off. Once me [and bandmates] Joe [Jewell] and Alan [Downey] made the decision to continue to make music, it was always going to continue.’
All those involved stress that this is not about replacing Christy, but finding a way to continue while keeping his memory alive. The band will not be involved in a tribute concert planned for later this year, but they are intent on honouring Christy themselves with their return.
Part of that involves Lee, a native of Finglas in Dublin, who says that, by dint of that alone, he feels a connection with the band.
‘Aslan are a huge band, especially where I’m from in Finglas,’ he says. ‘It’s like a religion in Finglas, the music, and I grew up listening to it.’
He is an experienced singer and performer in his own right, absorbing the love of music from his parents but also his wider family.
An uncle of his, Neil Poutch, who was a professional soccer player with Luton Town in England, helped point him down a path that will, in a few short weeks, see him regularly performing before thousands.
‘He had a room up in my nanny’s house,’ he recalls of his uncle’s influence, with a laugh. ‘You were never allowed into it, so obviously being a kid, the first place you want to go is your uncle’s room where you’re not allowed to go.
‘He had a guitar in the corner and I went into the room and picked up the guitar one day. I was sitting on the edge of the bed and my uncle walked in.’
The young Lee expected trouble. Instead, it was the start of a love affair.
‘He actually taught me a couple of chords, and then that Christmas I got a guitar,’ he says.
Since then, music has consumed him.
For a time, he tried to keep it as an accompaniment to earning a living. Eventually, he had to make a decision.
‘I did everything – I worked in a bar, I worked in a shop, I was an electrician, I was a security guard, I did any job, but it was always going to be music,’ he says. ‘I was playing music constantly and the day finally came when I said, “Look, I have to stop doing everything and just do the music”.’
In 2006, he joined DC Tempest, an indie-rock band with an eclectic blend of rock and electronica. In 2008, they released their debut EP Into The Light, playing gigs all over the country, including sold-out nights in Whelan’s and The Button Factory, as well as in Hamburg and The Cavern Club in Liverpool. They even made an appearance on The Podge And Rodge Show.
They performed as a support act for Bon Jovi, Razorlight and Kid Rock to 50,000 people in Punchestown in 2008, and released a second EP, Cities, in 2011.
More recently, Lee has performed as ‘Jon’ with the Bon Jovi tribute band Bon Giovi.
After Christy’s death, Lee saw a Facebook post that showed the three remaining Aslan members playing music together last year, and wondered if the band would be looking to recruit a singer. He’s friendly with Alan Downey’s brother Gary and used him to reach out.
He says: ‘I got in contact with Gary and I said, “Look, if you wouldn’t mind, I don’t know how the lads are fixed or if they have someone in mind or whatever, but if you wouldn’t mind putting my name forward. If they need anybody, I’d love to do it”.’
He adds: ‘I would have been happy coming up once and singing the songs with the lads. That would have been a 15-year-old Lee’s dream come true there. Then when I came up and sang the songs, things progressed from there.’
‘Getting the band back together’ is now a popular cultural phrase that speaks to reunions and a desire to recreate old glories.
In the case of Aslan, Christy’s death meant there could never be a reunion. But with the passion for music still there, there was a desire among
‘We knew some people weren’t going to be happy’
the remaining members to find a way of going on.
‘We were up here on our own,’ says Billy, speaking from their studio. ‘We never advertised for a singer, never put an ad in Hot Press or anything, we never put it out there we were looking for a singer.
‘Denise [McCormack, the band’s manager] posted on Facebook that we were up here, and then Gary, Alan’s brother, said, “There’s a singer here that wants to get in touch”.
‘We made a decision that we wanted to continue. It was a very hard decision to make.’
He adds: ‘When Aslan broke up in the 1980s and Christy was gone, everyone wanted to see Christy back with the band, and after five years we got back together again. But this time around, there’s no getting Christy back.’
So finding another way forward made one immediate demand: a singer. ‘We knew that if we wanted to continue we were going to have to get a singer, because I know my limitations, Joe knows his limitations,’ says Billy.
‘We’re fine on backing vocals but we knew we were going to have to make that decision to find a singer. And we knew some people weren’t going to be happy.
‘But we had to stress we weren’t trying to replace Christy. ‘Christy is irreplaceable.’ With Lee sharing a background with the band, they found quick common ground. From that, other possibilities flowed.
‘He was from Finglas, he had our sense of humour,’ says Billy. ‘He bonded fairly quickly with us.
‘But his vocal range and his guitar-playing brought a new element to Aslan. The actual sound has changed since Lee is in the band, because he’s not a frontman who is going to run around the stage and pretend to be Christy. He’s a brilliant guitar player and singer, he’s going to be playing guitar on stage with Aslan, so that is going to bring a different dynamic to the band.’
Weeks of intense preparation pave the way for the upcoming concerts. They play Cypress Avenue in Cork on March 22, before appearing at the Haven Hotel in Dunmore East on April 5, followed by a show at the Crown Live in Wexford the following night.
Then comes Dolan’s in Limerick on April 13, Monroe’s in Galway on April 20, and two nights in Whelan’s in Dublin, on April 25 and 26. The second date was added after the first sold out – an indication for the appetite among the band’s loyal and extensive fanbase.
‘The way I see it, Christy will never be replaced,’ says Lee. ‘Anyone that thinks I’m going to stand in the middle of the stage and try and do what Christy did, it’s not going to be the case.
‘I have to be myself, I have to bring my own thing to the table. It’s a dream come true for someone like me.
‘The comparisons with Christy, I’m sure are going to be there, but I guarantee you from the first time
‘I have to be myself, bring my own thing to the table’
I walk out on stage, people will say, “This is going to be different”.
‘I can’t try to be Christy. I can only be myself.’
He is excited about what is to come, both in playing live but also in what may flow from that, too. There have been whispers about recording new music.
‘I don’t have any expectations,’ says Billy, ‘because I’m just so happy and delighted we are back gigging. Of course we’re going to play all the songs that people know, but there are a couple of surprises as well.
‘What we’ve purposely done is, we’ve selected some songs Aslan never performed live before, and they’re going to be in the set as well.
‘It’s not just about going out doing old Aslan songs. The first job we had to do was get the set together. The next step is to record some new material with Lee.
‘It’s about moving forward. Aslan was always about that.’
They are doing so in a new way, and with the devastation of Christy’s death still fresh in their minds. There he will stay, never to be forgotten, they vow.
‘I just hope it goes well, which I think it will, because we’ve put a lot of work into this,’ says Billy.
‘Every gig we do will be a tribute to Christy. It’s keeping Aslan’s music alive, it’s keeping Christy’s memory alive.’
SEE ticketmaster.ie for tour dates and tickets