The biggest miracles in the life of BGT’s golden buzzer magician? This cherubic little girl and her brave mum
HIS spellbinding magic tricks enchanted the audience of Britain’s Got Talent last night, leaving troubled presenter Ant McPartlin in tears and judge Simon Cowell speechless.
But for the aptly named Marc Spelmann, there is something more miraculous in his life than any of his illusions – his wife Tessa and their two-year-old daughter, Isabella.
Because were it not for extraordinary measures taken by quick-thinking doctors, neither would be alive today.
Tessa, 43, battled an aggressive form of breast cancer while she was pregnant with their longedfor daughter and was forced to undergo chemotherapy with the baby still in her womb.
‘It is amazing to see Isabella today – she’s magic,’ Tessa told The Mail on Sunday. ‘She is our world.’
Last night viewers of the prerecorded ITV show – the first in the new series – watched as Isabella played a key role in her father’s act. Her first word was the one Cowell had picked from a book, leaving him ‘gobsmacked’.
Presenters Ant and Dec used their ‘golden buzzer’ to send Marc straight through to the next round, and insiders have tipped him to make the final.
Isabella’s starring role is all the more impressive given her start in life. Marc, 45, and Tessa suffered the heartache of struggling to conceive for five years, but during their final round of IVF, Tessa discovered she was pregnant.
However, their happiness was short-lived. Tessa, a beautician from Enfield, North London, found a lump in her breast. She says: ‘I just knew it wouldn’t be good news. And it wasn’t. It had also spread to my lymph nodes. I had to have chemotherapy straight away.’
When Tessa was seven months’ pregnant, doctors said she needed a stronger form of chemotherapy and decided to perform a caesarean so that both mother and daughter had a chance to live.
Isabella was born on December 23, 2015.
Tessa, who has since been given the all-clear from cancer, said: ‘We are so happy. We are going to enjoy the BGT journey and I am so proud of Marc, but Isabella is real magic.’