Every time her personal assistant’s two daughters’ birthdays came around, Lisa Armstrong bought them lavish gifts. She would also do the same on Christmas.
It was Lisa’s way of thanking the girls’ mother, Anne-Marie Corbett, for the job she did looking after her and her husband Ant McPartlin.
He always took great pleasure in choosing gifts for Poppy and Daisy, who are two years apart and were in primary school at the time.
“Lisa sent Christmas and birthday gifts to Anne-Marie’s daughters every year,” says a close friend.
Ant McPartlin cradles his new son in an Instagram photo that also shows off his family tree tattoo with the names of his wife and two daughters.
‘She enjoyed doing it. She also showered Anne-Marie with gifts and even took her on vacation. Lisa and Anne-Marie were very good friends, she was a reliable part of the setup.
How things have changed. Because this is, of course, the same Anne-Marie who in 2021 married Britain’s Got Talent presenter Ant following her bitter divorce from Lisa. And she who on Tuesday morning gave birth to Ant’s first child: a boy named Wilder Patrick.
The TV favorite shared the news with his millions of Instagram followers, posting an artistic black and white photograph of him hugging the child in which he showed off a tattoo on his shoulder of a tree with Anne-Marie’s nickname, ‘ Amzie’. as well as Poppy and Daisy’s names written on it. The girls, who are now teenagers and refer to Ant as “dad”, have a younger brother.
Along with the photo of the newborn, the star wrote on the joint Instagram account she shares with her partner Declan Donnelly: “Welcome to the family,” adding that the little one was born at 8:54 a.m. on Tuesday.
Ant then wrote: “Baby is beautiful, mom is a legend, sisters are delighted.” Dad is a disaster!
The post must have hurt poor Lisa deeply. Because for her, the birth of little Wilder at the London Clinic was a painful reminder of how she remains childless at the age of 47, and that devastates her.
As another friend of Lisa’s told me: ‘It’s a tragedy. She missed her chance to have a baby and now she has to watch Ant flaunting that tattoo on social media. She really didn’t need to do that.
‘It feels like I’m rubbing his face. We have to remember that here we are talking about a very sad story, she gave everything to Ant and in the end he ended up with an empty crib. “It’s absolutely heartbreaking.”
Pregnant Anne-Marie Corbett and Ant on a date night in central London last month
To make matters worse, Lisa, the lead make-up artist on BBC show Strictly Come Dancing, discovered Anne-Marie was pregnant only after reading about it in the Mail.
For a while she was in denial.
“Lisa finds it painful and heartbreaking that after everything he put her through, Ant didn’t tell her he was going to be a father,” the friend said.
“This all seems very insulting. Ant had Lisa’s best years. She feels like the ultimate betrayal. On top of that, you have all her old friends congratulating Anne-Marie and Ant on social media.”
Well wishes poured in from showbiz friends including Davina McCall, This Morning’s Cat Deeley, Britain’s Got Talent judge Alesha Dixon, Jamie Redknapp and many more.
Adding to the shock is the fact that when they were happy together, Ant made no secret of the fact that he and Lisa were desperate to have children and spent years trying to conceive.
Speaking in 2013, seven years after the couple married, he was remarkably candid about it: “There’s a rumor that we do everything together and I’m putting off having kids until Dec finds himself Mrs. Right.”
‘I love that idea, but I’m afraid it’s not true. Lisa and I would love to have children. We are trying. It’s harder than you think when you’re a little older. “We’ve been trying for a while, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed.”
No matter how many fingers Lisa and Ant crossed, their dream of becoming parents didn’t come true, even though they spent 23 years together.
And to make matters worse, social media trolls began blaming her for not being able to have children. “She went through a lot trying to have a baby, and then she had to put up with people guessing about her ability to have children,” says a friend who insists Lisa had no fertility problems.
Inevitably, everything seemed very different when she started dating Ant in 1994, when her new boyfriend was just 18.
They met on the music circuit. At the time, Lisa was in a band called Deuce, while Ant and Dec were carving out careers as a pop duo known as PJ and Duncan, their characters from the hit 90s children’s series Byker Grove, in which they first appeared. in TV.
Despite her impressive career as a makeup artist, Lisa was constantly at Ant’s side supporting him as he became one half of the country’s most loved entertainment act. The couple married in the summer of 2006 at Cliveden House, near Maidenhead, Berkshire, with Dec acting as best man.
To the outside world they had it all, but as the years went by, it became clear that Ant was in serious trouble.
Ant and Lisa Armstrong, pictured in 2015, had no children when they filed for divorce in 2018 after 11 years of marriage.
Lisa later found love with her ex-partner James Green. She ended their relationship last year.
Both he and Lisa enjoyed drunken nights out in their local pubs in Chiswick, west London, but Ant soon found himself battling his demons and became addicted to alcohol.
Lisa selflessly cared for Ant during this period.
She confided to friends that she spent “two years of hell” fighting to keep her ex-husband on track as his drinking and prescription drug addiction spiraled out of control.
While his alcoholism was initially kept hidden from the public, in March 2018 Ant was arrested and charged with drink-driving after his Mini collided with two other cars in south-west London while twice the legal limit. of alcohol, after taking their dogs for a walk in nearby Richmond Park.
The presenter was pictured staggering out of the car, looking disheveled after the collision, and was fined a record £86,000 at Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court.
Although he had previously sought help for his alcohol abuse, drug addiction and depression, it was the accident and the subsequent publicity that prompted him to go to rehab.
And the whole time Lisa was trying to help him. A make-up artist friend of Lisa said: ‘She went through hell. She wasn’t sure if her marriage would survive, but she supported him in trying to save it. It was very difficult for her. Ant was so bad that she often feared the situation was unsustainable.
Friends said he begged the star to seek professional help and pleaded with her not to leave his £10million home when he wanted to go out drinking. The friend added: “It was a very difficult time for Lisa, it all lasted for a while.”
‘She could see for years that Ant was depressed and that things were starting to get difficult for him. She loved him deeply and she wanted to make him better.
‘They had been together since they were teenagers, they went through ups and downs. “Lisa was there, by her side, throughout her successful career.”
Needless to say, Lisa was devastated when she found out Ant was dating Anne-Marie, who worked for the couple for six years and even hosted their 10th wedding anniversary party in 2016.
He had considered Anne-Marie and her then-husband Scott Corbett close friends, but relationship rumors began in 2018 after Ant split from Lisa, and Ant’s publicist confirmed the romance in June 2018.
Three years later, Anne-Marie and Ant married in a star-studded ceremony in Heckfield, Hampshire.
Lisa shared a cryptic post on the same day her ex-husband Ant revealed the happy news that he had become a father.
Dec, who has two children Isla, five, and Jack, one, with his wife Ali Astall, was best man and Anne-Marie’s daughters were bridesmaids. Guests included Holly Willoughby, Phillip Schofield, Frank Lampard and Eamonn Holmes.
Lisa, for her part, has enjoyed her own romances but was left heartbroken last August when her partner, an electrician called James Green, ended their three-year relationship.
It is understood she has been single since then.
While Lisa disputes reports that she received a settlement worth £31 million from Ant when they divorced, she did receive a substantial sum.
Earlier this week he put his former marital home in west London, which was given to him as part of his deal, up for sale for £4 million.
Lisa, however, doesn’t like money. ‘She’s not flashy and she doesn’t care much about being rich. Furthermore, what price can be put on motherhood? said a friend. ‘Some will say that she did very well with her divorce.
“Financially, maybe, but emotionally, it destroyed her.”
And yet, Lisa finds herself back in the spotlight every time Ant does something in his personal life.
She has confided to friends that she struggles to get attention and said that when she and Ant split six years ago, she was the second most Googled woman in Britain after Meghan Markle.
Maybe that’s why he decided to take a sunny flight to Portugal yesterday.
His trip came after an Instagram post on Tuesday, just hours before Ant revealed his news, which explained that he is going through “silent battles” which he detailed in a cryptic post.
“Be proud of how you’ve handled these last few months,” it said.
‘The silent battles you’ve fought, the moments you had to humble yourself, the times you wiped away tears. Celebrate your strength.’
For now, Lisa has her beloved chocolate lab Hurley to keep a smile on her face.
She and Ant acquired him after they realized they weren’t going to be parents and currently share custody of him even though Ant has two other dogs, Milo and Bumble.
“Lisa loves that dog very much,” says the friend.
“If anything will keep her going through this difficult time, it’s him.”