Truth behind Ant and Lisa’s shock split
He was a picture of despair after announcing his divorce yesterday and faces losing half his £62m fortune. So...
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‘Ant is her life, but he’s ready for a fresh start’ ‘There’s been a lot of sad stuff going on’
THE ISSUING of a statement to announce the end of a celebrity marriage brings with it some generally observed conventions.
It is customary to express sincere regret, to say — if possible — that no third party is involved, and to ask for privacy. It is also customary for the statement to be signed by both halves of the splitting couple.
How telling it is, then, that Ant McPartlin’s wife Lisa refused to put her name to the announcement yesterday that their 11-year marriage is at an end.
‘Ant is very sad to announce that, after 11 years, he is ending his marriage to Lisa McPartlin,’ it ran.
His camp indicates that she declined to be a co-signatory after taking legal advice.
The (perhaps unintended) consequence is that the statement comes across firmly as if she is being dumped by him.
After trying hard to hang on to the marriage since last summer, and standing by him unstintingly when he went into rehab (just as she stood by him supportively during his hectic and stressful career) Lisa has been cut free.
Her battles to stay married have been evident. She has steadfastly kept her wedding ring on, and told a Twitter follower who observed last year they were ‘estranged’ that they were no such thing.
But for all her protestations, her husband, known for his oh-so-jolly public demeanour, has kept his distance. They’ve not been pictured together since before he went into rehab last June — to be treated for drug habits he acquired following a knee injury — and it seems that they have barely seen each other.
Upon leaving rehab in August, Ant, who is worth £62million, did not opt to spend a few weeks reconnecting with his wife, but instead was chauffeured up to Newcastle to be with his mum. Then he went to America with his agent for a few weeks.
Back in the UK, he moved into a rented property near the marital home in Chiswick, West London, and he’s not lived with her since — even though the property was designed to his specifications, built with his cash and was their dream home.
Ant was in Australia filming I’m A Celebrity from mid-November and Christmas was spent with his mother and sister in Newcastle. He’s been back to the old marital home often to walk their dog, Hurley, a brown labrador which he dotes on.
He and Lisa are said to have had heart-to-heart talks during this time. A month ago, a friend of Ant’s told a newspaper that, following such conversations, Lisa had finally accepted that the marriage was over.
Embarrassingly, it seems the informant had jumped the gun, as a legal complaint swiftly followed from her high-profile lawyers at Harbottle & Lewis, denying the story and saying it breached her right to privacy.
Now, Ant, 42, has decided to announce it on his own.
A friend of the star told me a month ago: ‘The marriage is over, at least as far as Ant is concerned. He has checked out, but she has been hanging on.
‘Lisa has invested her whole life in him and hero-worships him. She doesn’t want it to be over.
‘He is her life, and she doesn’t want anyone but him, but he is ready to make a fresh start.’
The explanation given by Ant’s camp over the weekend is that he needs to cut the cord for the sake of his health.
It’s an unusual reason to end a marriage, but one which at least allows an exit with dignity on both sides.
A source close to Ant told a newspaper: ‘This was a tough decision for him, but he has to do the right thing for his health.
‘It hasn’t happened overnight. They’ve been having problems for ages. The marriage has effectively been struggling for eight months. He’s given it a good go.
‘They’ve met up and spoken about it a number of times and this is the decision he has made.
‘They are getting divorced. He is obviously really upset about it.’ The friend added: ‘Ant’s big concern in the whole thing is Lisa and making it as easy as possible for her. He will obviously look after her in the settlement. There is no doubt about that. He wants it to be amicable and friendly.’
Last night it was reported that Ant is prepared to give Lisa, 41, half his fortune — £31million.
One who has worked with the successful make-up artist told me she is ‘a tough cookie’.
Her old colleagues in the band Deuce recall that she was always the driving force who made things happen, and a pal on Strictly Come Dancing, where she is the make-up lead, affirms that she is very controlled and driven.
Like Ant, she has come from humble beginnings and made it with a combination of luck, talent and an immense work ethic. Born Lisa Armstrong, she was raised on the notorious Blackbird Leys estate in Oxford. Her father, Derek, is a builder.
In her early teens she was a disco-dance champion. She then won a place at The BRIT School in Croydon, Surrey, where she met Kelly O’Keefe, her future female bandmate in Deuce.
Kelly recalled: ‘We went by coach from Oxford every morning. We had to get up at 5am and wouldn’t get home until 8pm. It was very hard and I couldn’t stick it. But Lisa stuck it out. She is very driven.
‘She was very talented and we won competitions all over England. She was popular and had a big group of friends.’
In 1994, when she was 18, Lisa was asked to join a two-boy, two girl band called Deuce being founded by Tom Watkins, svengali behind Bros and East 17.
Deuce’s debut single Call It Love reached No 10 in 1995. They released another three singles before Kelly O’Keefe left, and the band finally split in 1997.
By this time, Lisa had already met Ant, on the Smash Hits Roadshow in Newcastle in 1995. He was performing with Declan Donnelly as PJ and Duncan.
In a rare interview, Lisa said: ‘I’ve always felt relaxed with him, and when we met there was something about his hair and eyes that made me feel all gooey.’ She
wasn’t alone. Indeed, the level of female attention — not to say hysteria — that surrounded Ant and Dec at the time has been largely forgotten.
However, in a published article in 1997, it was observed: ‘Ant is randy. He has sh**ged for Tyneside: on golf courses, nightclub lavatories, kitchen floors.’
In a 2000 interview, Dec said: ‘Ant is partial to this one [chat-up line]. He’ll go up to a girl, lick his finger and run it down her top, then he’ll say: “Shall I help you get out of those wet clothes?” ’
Ant demurred that this approach was actually used by Dec, and that he was now in a long-term relationship with Lisa. He said his chat-up lines revolved around making girls laugh.
Lisa had, by this point, retrained as a make-up artist.
While Ant grabbed the spotlight with SM:tv Live followed by Pop Idol and later by Saturday Night Take-Away, Red Or Black and Britain’s Got Talent, she got on with a low-key life applying make-up for celebrity photoshoots. To her credit, Lisa would make a point of not mentioning her own famous boyfriend.
In April 2005, Ant surprised Lisa by proposing marriage. He took her away on holiday, with a £16,000 square-cut diamond ring from Tiffany. His plans to pop the question were revealed to readers of a newspaper by his energetic PR team before he even took the step.
A friend was quoted as saying: ‘Lisa has been hassling Ant to marry her for years, but he had always wanted to wait. He kept saying he wanted to get married after he turned 30. His birthday is in November so there’s no excuse for him not to make his move.’
You can see why Lisa might have felt impatient: by that point they had been dating for a full decade.
Perhaps he had been scarred by his parents’ divorce when he was eight, which left his mother working three jobs to support them and Ant acting as the man of the house and cooking tea each night for himself and his sister.
The wedding, in July 2006, was at Cliveden House in Berkshire. Dec was the best man. Despite a stormy day, with rain lashing down, the couple looked delightfully happy.
Ant said at the time: ‘I’ve found that the key to a long and happy relationship is to not answer back. And to buy her loads of shoes.’
He added: ‘We have talked about it and children will eventually happen. We’re not marrying because we want to start a family, but that will happen eventually.’
Sadly, that confidence proved misplaced. In an interview in 2013, Ant revealed that he and Lisa had been trying for three years to conceive, but feared that time was no longer on their side.
Attempts to start a family put a strain on the couple’s marriage. Ant commented last year: ‘I would just say it’s a very private matter. We’ve struggled. Like a lot of couples do. It’s very personal.’
And there were other issues. Ant’s career has meant frequent separations, and his closer-than-brothers relationship with Dec may also have brought challenges.
The two friends meet a couple of times a week even when they aren’t working, and like to have lads’ weekends and holidays watching football without their wives.
Lisa’s snoring and Ant’s insomnia meant they started to sleep in separate bedrooms. Matters became worse when he started to suffer from immobility because of a torn meniscus in his knee in 2014.
Last year, Ant was living downstairs in the house, dicing with his life by combining opioids with alcohol, while Lisa would sleep upstairs. He was — in his own account — on his own and in pain, and depressed about it.
When he reached rock bottom and realised that he needed to be taken to hospital in an ambulance, he called Lisa’s mobile phone to wake her and ask her to help. With disarming honesty, he says that he was an awful husband: ‘I’ve put Lisa through hell with mood swings and depression and how it affects you. I’m very sorry about the effect it has on partners.’
When asked if their relationship could survive the trauma, Ant replied: ‘All I can say at the moment is that she’s been amazing.
‘This kind of stuff puts strains on any marriage. But we’re good. She’s been fantastic throughout rehab. Very supportive.’
How sad for both of them that, despite an evident will to patch it up on both sides, the marriage has now disintegrated.
A friend said: ‘Because Lisa was famous so young, she is almost a lonely person, in that her world revolves completely around him and his friends, and has done for a long time.
‘That makes her vulnerable now. I feel that she has given up on herself in recent years because there has been a lot of sad stuff going on behind closed doors.
‘Everyone feels for Lisa.’
‘I’ve put her through hell with mood swings’