Professor Green:
Having just become a first-time parent, Professor Green tells Closer what he’s learned from his past marriage breakdown, and how he’s going to be the best dad he can be
“I’m going to sort myself out now that I’m a dad”
He was left heartbroken when his two and a half year marriage to Millie Mackintosh ended bitterly in 2016. But five years on and Professor Green has found love again and, having just become a father, says he’s the happiest he’s ever been.
The 37-year-old rapper – who welcomed a son with his actress girlfriend Karima McAdams last month– admits he is “on a mission to sort out his sh*t” now that he’s a dad. He revealed his baby boy, who they have named Slimane Ray, arrived two weeks early and prompted “scare after scare”.
Writing on Instagram, alongside a picture of his son gripping his finger, he wrote, “Privately we’ve endured what so many parents-to-be have, your journey to us wasn’t a straight line whatsoever, it was a roller coaster right up to your arrival. I didn’t allow myself to express my excitement as much as I’d have liked to, I wanted to freely shout about how excited I was about you joining us, but I was frightened. We had scare after scare during the worst of which, I said to your Mama, ‘if he does make it, he’s grounded’.”
HAPPY PLACE
Pro Green – real name Stephen Manderson – married Made In Chelsea star Millie, 31, in 2013 in a lavish star-studded wedding – but things turned sour and the pair were granted a quickie divorce two years later, with Millie citing “unreasonable behaviour”.
And Pro now says he believes his previous relationship with Millie – who now has a ten-month-old daughter, Sienna, with her former MIC co-star Hugo Taylor – taught him lessons that he’s taken forward into his new romances.
He says, “Millie and I must have been in love with each other, because there were things that we did for each other that you wouldn’t do if you weren’t. But
[the relationship] took the focus away from all of my work and I really didn’t like that. It became a toxic relationship to be fair and it snowballed. When I look at it, I’ve had more functional relationships since and now I really am in the happiest place I’ve been in.”
Pro lives in London with his son and Karima, who he has been dating since 2019 after meeting through mutual friends, and says that he’s interested to see whether his son inherits his youthful looks. He says, “I think I’m quite fortunate as far as my genes go. I was actually asked for ID the other day. I mean, I did have a mask on… It always makes me laugh when people complain about getting older because the alternative is copping it and I’m actually happy to be alive, especially now that I’ve become a dad.”
The musician has previously made no secret of his battle with depression, as a result of the emotional trauma of being abandoned by both his parents not long after he was born. He was raised by his nan after his mum walked out on him and he has admitted that he suffered with anxiety and never felt safe as a child. In a previous interview, he said, “By the time I was one,
I had already suffered abandonment and then came the chaos of growing up to learn that my situation wasn’t like everyone else’s.”
SELF-LOATHING
Tragically, his dad took his own life in
2008 when he was 25, and his nan later revealed his uncle had also taken his own life. Pro’s experiences prompted him to front his own BBC documentary called Suicide And Me in 2015 – something he says he hopes will help others. He says, “I’ve been talking about my feelings since the loss of my father and that did a hell of a lot of work for removing the taboo and stigma surrounding mental health. It’s bittersweet, because I had to go through my stuff in order to do that, but that’s just the way things are.”
In lockdown, the rapper – who smoked his first joint aged 11, began dealing the drug at 16 and smoked daily until he was 24 – cleaned up his act even further and has now cut out booze to stop the feelings of self-loathing.
Now that he’s become a dad, Pro says, “I am on a personal mission to sort my s**t out. I try to stay on top of stuff and a lot of people like to decompress by having a drink, but if I wake up with a hangover then I’m not going to get anything done and then
things become more unmanageable and then that leads to anxiety and stress.
“The self-loathing isn’t that healthy, either. So now I do it far less – if at all.
It’s all about picking your battles, being focused, having a clear-out and staying on top of things as much as possible. Whenever I can, I turn off my phone to escape. I have got responsibilities and I like to walk my dogs, but I lead a very mundane, day-to-day life. For me, it’s getting out of bed every day and getting on with it and that is commendable.”
With new music and TV projects in the pipeline, Pro is excited about his latest venture with Tideway, the company financing and building the 25km tunnel under London’s river that will prevent the tens of millions of tonnes of pollution that currently pollute the River Thames every year. Born in Hackney, east London, Pro adds that he’s proud of his home town’s project. He says, “I grew up in east London and I spent two years of my adult life living on Bermondsey Street and walking my dogs up and down the River Thames, not really realising the impact that our way of life was having on it. But this project is really going to make London so much cleaner.”
By Olivia Buxton
● Watch his virtual tour underground on Instagram @tidewaylondon