Is ‘baby bump’ the reason why Dec’s wife Ali missed Baftas?
PRINCE Charles’s favourite court jesters, Ant and Dec, don’t just work together, but they socialise as a pair, too, accompanied by their wives.
Declan Donnelly’s wife, Ali Astall, was, however, conspicuous by her absence when he and Ant McPartlin attended the Bafta TV Awards on Sunday.
Ali’s absence was all the more notable because Ant’s wife, AnneMarie Corbett, joined the Geordie duo for the glittering ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall, where they won the Best Entertainment Show prize for Saturday Night Takeaway.
Instead, a casually dressed Ali, 43, spent the weekend doing chores near their home in Chiswick, West London, where she was seen wearing a hoodie, leggings and sliders (pictured left). An onlooker tells me: ‘She looked as if she might be pregnant.’
A new child would be exciting news for the couple, who have a three-year-old daughter, Isla. Dec has spoken about how fatherhood in 2018 changed his life. ‘Becoming a dad has completely transformed me,’ said Dec, 46. ‘I felt a love that I didn’t realise it was possible to feel. Everything I do, every day, is for my daughter now.’
He married Ali, his former manager, in 2015. Ant, 46, meanwhile exchanged vows with his former personal assistant Anne-Marie, 43, last year.
Ant and his first wife, Strictly Come Dancing make-up artist Lisa Armstrong, were involved in an acrimonious £31 million divorce in 2018. Ant had been in rehab for addiction to painkillers compounded by heavy drinking. He apologised for putting Lisa ‘through hell’. She and Ant first met when she was a pop singer.
Following the split, she expressed shock at seeing the first pictures of her ex and Anne-Marie together as a couple. Corbett was also her personal assistant and Lisa accused ‘my friend our PA’ of ‘breaking girl code’.
Ant and Dec have become friends of the heir to the throne.
Following a series of televised heart-to-hearts with Charles and his sons Princes William and Harry, the pair were chosen to front ITV’s coverage of the Queen’s 90th birthday.
To seal the royal approval, Ant and Dec were invited to stay at Dumfries House, Charles’s stately home in Ayrshire, in 2015, and they will be hosting the Prince’s Trust Awards for the tenth time later this month.