My ex-husband was a criminal who went on the run from police. I took him back for the kids’ sake and he cheated on me
X FACTOR STAR TRACYLEANNE’S TROUBLED PAST...
The X Factor favourite Tracyleanne Jefford has revealed her then husband was at the centre of an international manhunt and went on the run for five months.
The mum-of-three has been one of the stars of the ITV series – with show judges Nicole Scherzinger and Sharon Osbourne raving about her voice.
But after also winning them over with her bubbly personality, Tracyleanne has spoken of her secret troubled past and how she has been getting over it since divorcing from her criminal ex.
She says her husband of 17 years, who skipped bail on fraud charges and went on the lam, left her in turmoil.
Westley James Temple, 34, sparked an HM Revenue and Customs manhunt.
Officers finally caught him after a tip-off he was in France. Tracyleanne says: “I suffered years of pain and misery. I have nothing but bad memories of him.
“It was just constant emotional turmoil because I kept saying that I wouldn’t let him hurt me again.”
Tracyleanne, of Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, married Westley in 2000.
He is the father of her three children Westley James junior, 14, Levi, 13, and Anita-Isabella, seven.
Tracyleanne says that throughout the marriage he would regularly go AWOL for weeks or months, making it a rocky, on-and-off relationship but that she would always take him back.
It was a disruptive cycle, which got worse in 2014 after he was charged in relation to an investigation into a £105,000 vehicle fraud scam.
His two co-defendants were sentenced to 16 months and 14 months for faking vehicle purchases to claim VAT repayments. HMRC, which was prosecuting, revealed Temple failed to appear.
It led to a warrant being issued and a national appeal for information on his whereabouts after they declared he had “gone into hiding”.
He was found five months later and brought back to the UK after the tip-off in Coquelles, near Calais, in 2015.
A month later at Ipswich crown court he was handed a five-month suspended sentence on six counts of fraud, and one month suspended for skipping bail.
Tracyleanne, also 34, had been separated from him when he did the flit but took him back afterwards.
“Throughout the marriage we spent a lot of time apart and he would disappear for months on end,” she says.
“We would be saddened and heartbroken. So when he came back I would give him another chance.
“Yet then he would do it again. It was a constant cycle.” She says she was “stupid and naive” to forgive him, adding: “I was thinking of the children, I didn’t want them to come from a broken home.
He used to tell me I was ugly and no one would ever want me TRACYLEANNE ON JIBES FROM HER THEN HUSBAND
He used to tell me I was ugly and no one would ever want me, and that’s why I kept going back I think.”
Tracyleanne left him for good last year. She claims he had been cheating on her.
“I was absolutely heartbroken. I was so in love with him,” she adds. “But I had to get away from that negativity. I wanted my life to change – for good.
“I am a different person now. Now I am back to the bubbly Tracyleanne.”
Her divorce has just come through as Tracyleanne is setting the world on fire on The X Factor.
“What he has done to me has happened for a reason – it has set me free,” she says. “And now, going on The X Factor has changed my life.” After
wowing with her version of Will You Love Me Tomorrow in the first auditions, she sailed through boot camp and faces the six-chair challenge this weekend.
Bookies are tipping her to go all the way. Yet it wasn’t just a nightmare ex that has left Tracyleanne in pain.
The brunette, originally from East London, and who is from the travelling community, has suffered a lot of heartache over the past two decades.
Before her eldest child was born, Tracyleanne suffered four miscarriages and was left worried she would never have kids. Then she almost died when having her second child. “I have had trouble with pregnancy in the past, so my babies are everything,” she says.
“I nearly died when I was having Levi – I haemorrhaged and he was in intensive care for three weeks. He lost quite a lot of oxygen, and they only gave him a 50/50 chance of survival.”
Mum and baby pulled through but then two years ago he was rushed to hospital again – this time with meningitis. “He nearly died,” says Tracyleanne. “I can’t describe how that felt. There has been so much negativity but now I look at everything from a positive perspective.”
This is the second time she has been on The X Factor.
She first appeared in 2006, when she was a size 20 and struggling with cripplingly low self-confidence.
She made it to boot camp but feels far more confident this time around. She has also lost five-and-a-half stone and slimmed down to a size 10 after being able to stop the comfort eating.
Judges Nicole and Sharon were amazed by Tracyleanne’s transformation, remarking on her stunning looks.
“Nine years ago, I wasn’t ready for X Factor,” Tracyleanne explains. “My ex held me back a lot, I had no confidence whatsoever. But for Nicole to tell me I’m beautiful – well, that’s like someone giving you £1million. That was the best karma.”
She also heard that her ex had seen her on the programme.
“At first he was complimentary but then went back to insulting me,” she claims. “But I am putting all that behind me now.”
While she’s moving on, she will be concentrating on singing rather than romance for the time being. “I am not interested in dating,” she says. “I was a bird in a cage and now I have been let out.
“I want to follow my dreams and live my life for me and my children.”
The big dream now for Tracyleanne is, of course, to win The X Factor. “I have got so much to give. I want to make it to the Grammys one day – why not? I want to help other women who have been through what I have been through and be an inspiration. I want to show them you can come out on the other side.
“I will never look back any more. All I can do is look to the future now – and the future looks great.”
The X Factor continues with six-chair challenge this weekend – tonight at 8.15pm and tomorrow at 7pm on ITV.
Nicole told me I am beautiful.. that’s like being given £1million TRACYLEANNE ON HER NEW-FOUND CONFIDENCE