Ant’s family U-turn: ‘Life’s too short!’
Why recently divorced Ant McPartlin wants to reconcile…
Ant McPartlin, currently watching with glee as he and Declan Donnelly put celebs through their paces in the I’m ACelebrity… jungle, recently broke his silence on his estranged relationship with his father, Raymond.
During filming for his show Ant & Dec’s DNA Journey with best friend and co-host Dec, the 43-year-old (who divorced his make-up artist Lisa Armstrong last year) claimed that, when he reached his forties, he made a family U-turn and decided ‘ life was too short’ not to reach out to his father, who left when Ant was just a child.
‘My dad left the family when I was about 10, and I’ve seen him sporadically over the years. I haven’t seen him for a long time now,’ he explained. ‘ We didn’t speak for quite a while… but last year we started texting each other and I spoke to him on the phone for my birthday, which was lovely.’
Ant continued: ‘To be fair, life is too short. There is no point [in] holding grudges... I turned 40 and thought, “Let’s stop messing about, let’s get in touch because you never know what’s going to happen”.’
The star, who took a break from TV to enter rehab after a drinkdriving incident in 2018, was brought up by his mum Christine Woodall after his dad left and remarried.
Dec, 44, spoke out about the impact Ant’s addiction battle had on their 31-year friendship, admitting he thought he’d ‘ lost’ his friend for good. ‘It has been a tough couple of years and it has tested the bond we have shared since we were 13.’
And perhaps Ant reaching out to his dad after all these years was a cry for help during troubled times? It happened, after all, just months before the devastating incident in which he put a child’s life
– and his own – at risk by driving under the influence.
Who really knows what’s going on in anyone’s mind – let’s just hope that Ant continues on the happy, healthy road he’s on, with no turning back.
‘I turned 40 and thought, “Let’s stop messing about, let’s get in touch”’