Ant’s not a victim. He’s just rather unpleasant

CAN you imagine what Ant McPartlin’s estranged wife Lisa Armstrong must have been feeling when she saw him pictured out at the weekend with his new girlfriend?

It must have torn her heart out. Not just because the girlfriend, Anne-Marie Corbett, had been Ant’s personal assistant — someone she welcomed into their home and described on social media as her ‘homie’ or mate. But also because the couple were dining at a restaurant in Wimbledon, where Ant and Lisa used to live as husband and wife.

Worse, they were joined by Ant’s TV partner Declan Donnelly and his pregnant wife Ali Astall — two people Lisa had for years considered her closest friends.

Lisa wouldn’t be human if she were not thinking of the countless times she, rather than Anne-Marie, had been in that foursome: two couples, on a night out. She has good reason to feel betrayed by everyone in that dining party.

But it’s Ant who is the real villain. For 24 years, he and Lisa had been inseparable and she’d always stood by him.

Then came his mid-life crisis and dalliance with drink and prescription drugs and he callously dumped her, took up with Anne-Marie and is now said to be demanding Lisa signs divorce papers so he can get on with his life. He’s apparently prepared to be ‘generous’ with his estimated £70million fortune in any settlement. How very magnanimous! Isn’t it ‘their’ money, not ‘his’?

Lisa worked throughout their marriage and is a highly regarded make-up artist on shows such as Strictly Come Dancing.

The truth, I suspect, is that behind Ant’s carefully cultivated, familyfriendly, wholesome, cheeky-chappy image lies an utterly selfish, unpleasant man possessed of a monumental disregard for others.

This, remember, is someone who endangered lives when he crashed into two cars while drunk.

And yet he is still treated as a victim suffering from an illness. Only this week, his boss at ITV, Carolyn McCall, said Ant will not be back on TV until he is ‘well and fit enough’.

There’s nothing wrong with Ant other than his appalling self-regard. As for victims, there’s only one in this story — his loyal wife Lisa.