ABBY: ‘I’m not the person I was five years ago’
Abby Cohen has talked openly about the impact her divorce had on her, admitting she regretted spending five years crying over her husband Ben after their marriage fell apart.
The childhood sweethearts split in 2014 after 11 years of marriage – just months after rugby player Ben, 41, was partnered with professional dancer Kristina Rhianoff on Strictly Come Dancing, with whom he’s now in a relationship.
Now Abby – who is mum to 12-year-old twins Harriette and Isabelle with Ben – has found love with a new man, going official with their relationship on Instagram earlier this month, with a photograph showing the couple in a sweet embrace.
Abby has described feeling like she’d been “hit by a bus” after Ben walked out, amid rumours of an affair with Kristina, 42.
Just two months after their divorce was finalised in 2016, Ben announced the pro dancer was expecting their daughter, Milena, now three – with Abby insisting she only learned of the pregnancy bombshell after Kristina told her CBB housemates. Abby’s mum, Felicity, later branded the pair “callous and cruel”.
But during an interview last week, Abby refused to badmouth the couple, explaining she is “not the same person I was five years ago”, and adding she is “much more confident”.
She also revealed she had sought therapy and “spent a fortune on psychics, asking ‘Why?’” following their split, admitting she would “cry for ages” to her two best friends, believing her pain would never end.
But she says once she realised things wouldn’t change, she threw herself into her new photography career and, more recently, her project with Lisa, finding she enjoyed helping others who have also “hit rock bottom”.
Now refusing to be defined as the “jilted ex”, she said in an interview last week, “I’ve got my two girls. My life. I’ve finally met a really nice man. I want to be known as Abby the good photographer or Abby the great mum. I’m stronger.
“I can give myself a pat on the back, as well as my friends and family who have supported me through a really rubbish past five years.”