Olympic gold medalist Dame Denise Lewis has split from her music mogul husband Steve Finan, The Mail on Sunday has reported.
The couple, who met at the Brit Awards, have reportedly separated in recent months after 18 years of marriage.
Friends say Finan, who was the late Liam Payne’s manager for seven years, moved out of the family home in Buckinghamshire where the couple lived with their three children.
The split is widely known within the music industry, where Finan, 60, is considered something of a “heavyweight.”
A source told The Mail on Sunday: “It’s a shame because they are both lovely people and were always considered a wonderful couple.”
Denise Lewis and her husband Steve Finan The British Olympic Ball, London in 2012. The couple, who met at the Brit Awards, are understood to have split in recent months after 18 years of marriage.
Denise Lewis speaks during coverage of the Olympic Games in August.
‘Despite trying to make it work, Steve and Denise found themselves drifting away from each other.
“In the end they decided that breaking up was probably the most sensible thing to do.”
The glamorous heptathlete, 51, UK Athletics president, did not wear her wedding ring on air during her stint as a pundit on the BBC’s Olympic Games coverage in the summer.
She and Finan also do not follow each other on social media.
They were both left devastated by Liam’s death last month after he fell from the third-floor balcony of a hotel in Buenos Aires.
Finan was part of the team that planned Liam’s solo career after he split from One Direction, and Lewis, who was given a damehood last year for her services to sport, was very close to the singer.
The couple supported him during his separation from Cheryl Tweedy and his difficulties with drugs.
Liam, 31, was a regular visitor to his home in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, and later bought a mansion less than a mile away.
Ten days ago, Lewis shared a touching tribute to the star with a collection of photos of the couple over the years, writing that their “dark storms” have now passed. She also thanked the singer for “being so sweet” to her children and said he was “more loved than you could imagine.”
Lewis met Finan, the son of comedian Tom O’Connor, in 2000 through mutual friends at the Brit Awards, when he was then a pop manager dealing with Neneh Cherry, Madness and All Saints.
They reunited after she split from Belgian sprinter Patrick Stevens, father of her daughter Lauryn, and began dating.
Lewis, who appeared on BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing in 2005, has spoken out about his relationship with Finan.
Before the couple’s wedding in 2006, she confessed: “I was still with Patrick when I met Steve, then we met again recently and it was kind of love at second sight.”
Denise Lewis attends The Sun Who Cares Wins Awards at The Roundhouse, London in September 2023
Finan (left) pictured with the late Liam Payne. Liam, 31, was a regular visitor to the couple’s home in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, and later bought a mansion less than a mile away.
In 2017, to celebrate their 11th wedding anniversary, Lewis wrote on Instagram: “Thank you to all my friends and family who have been there for us through the good and not so easy times, but the biggest thank you goes to my Man of Steel.” “. “…it’s a good job, you like challenges.”
A year later, in an interview when Ms Lewis was pregnant with the couple’s third child, Mr Finan said: “Denise is an amazing mother and she loves babies. I told her she needs to open a delivery room if she wants more .
Mrs Lewis is one of Britain’s most decorated athletes.
He won the gold medal in the heptathlon at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and a bronze in the same competition four years earlier in Atlanta.
When asked about the separation of their marriage, Lewis declined to comment, but did not deny their separation.
Neither Finan nor a spokeswoman for Lewis responded when offered the opportunity to comment.