Misery of having to go it alone as a single
GOODNESS knows we adore Ant. He’s half of a great British institution, the embodiment of televisual fun and frolics. Yet surely anyone who has a heart must feel for his wife Lisa Armstrong as she battles to resurrect an entirely nuked life. Lisa and Ant have been married since 2006. They met years earlier – pre his Big Cheese status – when he and Dec were just a couple of warblers on the pop scene and she was part of a now long-forgotten girl band.
She has been at his side since so long before he hit the big time she must be one of the few people who remembers him before success transported him into the showbiz stratosphere. She supported him through the addiction years. She stuck to her career as a make-up artist, ensuring her identity wasn’t eclipsed by his. She formed a tight little trio with Dec before he finally tied the knot. If Ant’s comments are anything to go by, she also did her utmost to make their dream of becoming parents a reality.
We know Lisa wasn’t ready to kiss her marriage goodbye. She resisted admitting defeat, tweeting trenchantly: “I am not estranged.” The ongoing battle over access to the couple’s dog also shows a woman who doesn’t want to disentangle.
We reluctant casualties of divorce know the drill. Keep the caninebased hostilities going and at least you maintain contact with the Beloved. As long as you’re speaking, even if it’s just to yell insults, there’s the (tiny) chance of reconciliation.
THAT was until lunchboxgate. Lisa saw Ant leaving his rented flat, their former PA Anne-Marie Corbett in the background, a packed lunch firmly in his hand. Instantly the penny dropped. Ant and Anne-Marie are an item. PAs aren’t cooks. They don’t rustle up portable salads for their employers unless there’s a spark fizzing.
At a glance, Lisa realised it was curtains for her marriage and farewell to the life she knew. Ant and Anne-Marie have already grown close to Dec and his wife Ali. Lisa – huge potential cash settlement or not – is alone and out in the cold. She has lost stones in weight on the break-up diet. I remember it well. It was the only occasion on which I was described in the newspapers as “gaunt”. Veterans of that weight-loss method will remember the choking sensation when they try to eat. Grief kills appetite. Cake brings no consolation. The pounds drop off and you feel not the remotest scintilla of joy.
Lisa has gone blonde. She has been raven haired all her life. She has carted herself from Chiswick to LA endeavouring to establish a career across the pond miles from the contacts and customers she has already wooed and won.
And the worst part of it all is that she doesn’t want any of it. She doesn’t want to be slim and miserable, blonde and hustling, single and on the market. She just wants her husband, her home and her marriage. Any woman who has walked in Lisa’s shoes knows the misery of being exiled from your own life. It’s hell. I hope family and friends are rallying round to hold her hand.