Holding hands in the garden of their beautiful family home, Fearne Cotton and Jesse Wood looked lovingly into each other’s eyes as they posed in their wedding outfits.
The happy photo was posted on the Radio 2 DJ’s Instagram page just five months ago to celebrate the couple’s 10th wedding anniversary. “I wish we could do it all over again,” Fearne, 43, wrote wistfully.
If there was any hint of marital problems, it was carefully crafted not to show. That’s why Friday’s revelation that Fearne and Jesse, 48, son of Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood and legendary rock ‘n’ roll groupie Krissy Findlay, had split, has been quite shocking.
After all, just two days ago, Fearne was still wearing her wedding ring in photos posted to social media.
And the split seems to have taken not only their fans by surprise, but also those who knew them.
“It is with a heavy heart that I let everyone know that Jesse and I are ending our marriage,” Fearne told her 3.9 million Instagram followers. “Our priority has been and always will be our children.”
Fearne Cotton and Jesse Wood at their wedding in 2014
At least to the outside world, they were an idyllic mixed-race family. Living in a six-bedroom Victorian property in Richmond, Surrey, the couple juggled the needs of their children (Rex, 11, and Honey, nine) with regular visits from Jesse’s two children, Arthur, 22, and Lola , 18, from his first marriage to model and producer Tilly Wood.
But inside their pretty front door, there were disputes, mental health battles and a complete overhaul of their once-hedonistic lifestyles, which, some suggest, could hint at the reasons for their seemingly abrupt split.
“They are a lovely couple,” explained a friend of the former children’s television star. ‘But Fearne has changed a lot since they got together. She was kind of a rock chick when they met and now she’s become kind of a hippie therapy girl.
What is certain is that the couple is no longer what they were when they met in Ibiza in 2011.
Jesse had split from Tilly the previous year, and Fearne, single after breaking up with her fiancé, skateboarder Jesse Jenkins, was on a girls’ holiday.
They are said to have hit it off immediately and, as she later admitted, their first date consisted exclusively of vodka and cigarettes.
Sources say Fearne, the Radio One Chart Show’s first presenter who also presented Top Of The Pops and was a regular on ITV panel show Celebrity Juice, was instantly “dazzled”.
Their differences didn’t seem to matter. Fearne had grown up in the leafy London suburb of Eastcote with her poster-writer father, Mick, and therapist mother, Lyn, but was welcomed into the Wood family and “famously” got along with Ronnie and his wife Sally. , and with Jesse’s younger sister, Leah. .
The couple changed back into their wedding suits, minus Jesse’s shoes, to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary five months ago.
A friend who knew her as a child said, “Fearne was a good girl, but she wasn’t that cool.”
‘She was a bit drama school, a bit portly, actually. She didn’t have that advantage, but suddenly, she was dating a “nepo baby” from the Rolling Stones.
‘They were the perfect couple and those who knew them thought they would be together forever. Fearne immediately connected with Jesse’s family. “Everything was so perfect.”
Until then, Fearne had a complicated relationship history.
In 2003, when she was catapulted to fame on children’s show The Saturday Show, her then-boyfriend Peter Brame, who had starred in the BBC talent series Fame Academy, admitted to smoking crack cocaine on a wild night out with glamor models.
Worse was to come after her split from Lostprophets frontman Ian Watkins when he was jailed for 29 years for a series of child sex offences, including the attempted rape of a baby.
Jesse, five years her senior and a man who was comfortable with her emotional side, was the perfect antidote.
A friend tells me: ‘Fearne was so happy when she met Jesse that she literally couldn’t stop smiling. He was handsome and kind, she was really hurt by what had happened to her in the past with Ian and Pete.
“Fearne had just turned 30 and was able to leave his horrible relationships behind and find happiness.”
They had their first child, Rex, in February 2013, and married the following summer at the Richmond Registry Office in front of celebrity guests including their Celebrity Juice co-host Keith Lemon, presenter Dermot O’Leary and former star from This Morning Holly Willoughby, then a very close friend.
Their daughter Honey arrived a year later in 2015, when Fearne announced she was leaving Radio 1 after a decade.
He later admitted that presenting was “literally ruining my mind”, although he returned to presenting a weekly Sounds Of The 90s show on Radio 2.
Since then, the former party girl has set out to transform herself with healthy eating, yoga, mindfulness and meditation. In fact, her newfound happiness at being with Jesse and their children was thought to be the inspiration behind her podcast, Happy Place, which has become a brand that has a clothing range and even an annual festival.
Fearne has been open about her depression, anxiety and panic attacks and admitted to having received different types of therapy to deal with things that “have happened to her in the past.”
Jesse, whom she described as a “free spirit,” was credited as a huge supporter in her 2017 book, Happy.
Writing that she felt “exhausted, antisocial and alienated” during her darkest days, she added: “My husband is key because he always tells me when I’ve gone a little off or if I’m a little manic.” And it really helps to have someone who is very honest with me.
‘I am exceptionally lucky to have met someone who has an incredibly free spirit, curiosity about life and an open mind. “He’s always a good sounding board and has a very positive outlook.”
Not that it’s always been like this. Fearne once described how, in 2019, the couple had a two-hour shouting match in a park that left her wondering “where the love had gone” and worried it wouldn’t return.
He also admitted that his sex life failed during the pandemic.
Two weeks ago Fearne took to social media to announce that she has two benign tumors in her jaw.
More lifestyle changes came when they went vegan together in 2021.
Jesse, a recovering alcoholic, no longer drinks and today Fearne rarely drinks either.
She has revealed that although she “still loves a good party”, she likes to be lying in bed at 9.30pm. It is a far cry from its hedonistic heyday.
It is unclear whether these radical changes have contributed to their marital breakdown.
It’s also curious that the split announcement came less than two weeks after Fearne revealed she would be undergoing surgery to remove two benign tumors in her jaw.
Had the relationship already ended by then, or did something happen afterwards that caused Fearne to take decisive action?
Certainly, listeners to her podcast, which hit 100 million downloads last summer, now expect her to be completely honest with them, and with a lucrative brand on her hands, she wouldn’t have wanted to betray them by holding back.
As one source said: “For Fearne it was potentially damaging to her brand to hide something like that from her followers who adore and trust her.”
But so far there has been no mention of divorce.
A source close to the family says: ‘The Woods welcomed Fearne into their gang with open arms. She is one of their own and everyone hopes that the marriage ends amicably.