Selfish Ant’s car crash life – and why he always gets away with it

Can it really be true that for 20 years the British public has voted ant and Dec the top television presenters in Britain? For two decades, again and again, this indomitable pair have wriggled their way into the nation’s affections and now nothing, it seems, can winkle them out.

We are all suckers for a comedy duo. This is the nation, after all, that loved the Two Ronnies, Morecambe and Wise, French and Saunders, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.

But with this double act, the undeniable chemistry obscures two very different men. Sweet, good-natured Dec was raised a devout Catholic: his brother, a priest, conducted the star’s marriage to the statuesque ali astall, his and ant’s manager.

and ant, as we know, is far more troubled. as a magistrate once sternly told him, he is not ‘a man of good character’.

as these handsomely paid TV stars soaked up the applause this week after collecting their umpteenth award, did anyone stop to think of the nine-yearold boy who screamed, ‘I’m dying, Mummy! I’m dying!’ after a drunk ant, who was driving a car carrying his mother and his dogs, crashed into one vehicle and then hit another?

ant staggered from his car, became ‘argumentative’ with police when they arrested him and was eventually fined £86,000 and banned from driving.

Later, he said: ‘My first thought was: “S***, is my mam OK? are the dogs OK? are the fellow passengers in the other cars OK?”’ Mother, dogs, other people’s families. What a revealing order.

ant soon checked into rehab, perhaps to launch his bid for public forgiveness — and not for the first time.

a year before that horrifying 2018 crash, ant had entered a clinic, citing his addiction to a cocktail of superstrong painkilling drugs, all swilled down with booze.

It was his wife of 23 years, Lisa armstrong, who saw him through that time, putting her dreams of having a child on hold to care for her baby of a husband.

Yes, the woman ant then unceremoniously dumped for her own Pa and onetime close friend, anne-Marie Corbett, when he got sober. It was anne-Marie he paraded at the awards ceremony.

During their bitter divorce, for me the most creepy thing was ant demanding joint custody of his and Lisa’s pet dog, even though he had acquired two puppies with his new squeeze. How selfish can one man be? The duo’s new TV show is called Limitless Win. They promise it will be packed with ‘drama, jeopardy and real emotion’ — just like ant’s chaotic, reckless life. ‘Limitless win’ indeed.