A Dancing on Ice star has revealed she experienced a ‘messy and scary’ split from her husband after falling for her skating partner.
S Club singer Rachel Stevens appeared on the ITV series in 2022, during which she was paired with professional Brendyn Hatfield.
At the time she was married to childhood sweetheart Alex Bourne, who recently appeared on the Netflix reality series Buying London and with whom she shares two daughters, Amelie and Minnie.
However, in July 2022 Rachel shared a statement on social media announcing they were divorcing.
Around nine months later she was linked to Brendyn, who has been a professional on Dancing on Ice since 2020.
Now Rachel, 46, has said that her marriage was on the rocks when she met her current partner, and she was left in ‘turmoil’.
‘It was messy,’ she said.
‘I knew that we were growing, that I was growing apart, but I was in turmoil, because first of all, my kids,’ she told The Sun on Sunday’s Fabulous magazine.
Recalling telling Alex about her feelings for Brendyn, she admitted: ‘It was really scary, because I knew as soon as I said that that was it.’
She went on to call Brendyn a ‘beautiful human’ and added that she ‘really loves him’.
When publicly announcing her divorce, Rachel said she felt ‘incredibly grateful’ for the life they had built together.
‘I just wanted to share with you all that after time and consideration the difficult decision has been made for Alex and I to separate,’ she wrote in a statement on social media.
‘While we are no longer partners in marriage, we will remain partners in parenthood to our beautiful girls and continue with love and respect for each other. I feel so incredibly grateful for the life we built together and will now continue to be focused on moving forward united as a family.’
She later said their split was ‘really painful and sad’.
‘We’re doing it with love and respect, but it’s a process. It’s taken a lot of navigating. We are going to mess up and make mistakes. But we are acknowledging that to them, and I feel so lucky,’ she said.
Meanwhile, Brendyn also reportedly separated from his wife, Jessica, around three years ago.
It was reported last May that the skater welcomed a child with one of the TV executives who worked on Dancing on Ice while his romance with Rachel was in its early days.
Dancing on Ice is expected to return to ITV later this year.
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