Friends of Ant McPartlin’s first wife, Lisa Armstrong, revealed she only found out he was expecting a child with his second wife back in December when she saw pictures of Anne-Marie’s burgeoning baby bump in the Daily Mail.
And she only learned of the arrival of the longed-for son when the doting father posted a picture of himself cradling baby Wilder McPartlin in his arm on Tuesday.
Even the coldest heart can see how that must have hurt Lisa, despite the couple divorcing around eight years ago. Ant had previously spoken of how he and Lisa – who spent 23 years together – had longed for a child and tried desperately for one without achieving the happy outcome they dreamed of.
Ant will have known that, as Lisa is childless at 47, his happy news might have caused her pain.
Ant McPartlin cradles his baby in a photo introducing him to his Instagram followers this week
Of course, the arrival of a child is a joyous occasion, but surely any decent man in such circumstances would have given his ex-wife a quick heads up to tell her he was expecting a child.
That would have been the kind thing to do for a woman you had shared more than two decades with, who stood by you and went through ‘years of hell’ as your prescription drug abuse and alcoholism spiralled out of control.
Friends say Lisa finds it ‘hurtful and heartbreaking after everything he put her through’ that Ant didn’t forewarn her he was about to become a dad.
And you can understand why. It was cruel, selfish – and, dare I say, gutless. As well as being a far cry from the cheeky chappy, lad-next-door Geordie persona he and his slick PR team have worked so hard to create despite the long history of his troubled behaviour.
And wasn’t there something crassly self-congratulatory about the hideous tattoo he flaunted on his arm while cradling baby Wilder? A tree of life, I’m guessing, with Anne-Marie’s nickname at the top, her two daughters by another marriage in the leaves along with the names of their two dogs. No mention of Ant’s and Lisa’s old labrador Hurley.
Yes, even Hurley has been scrubbed from Ant’s new and perfect life, the pooch he fought tooth and nail to have joint custody of during the divorce, trying to deny Lisa even the small comfort of looking after the mutt after he left her and took up with Anne-Marie.
To my mind, that smacks of meanness and self-concern rather than an individual hailed by his friends as ‘one of the most liked and most respected men in showbiz’. It’s all about him – as well as the precious Ant McPartlin brand.
Ant and his second wife Anne-Marie Corbett on their wedding day in 2021
Lisa Armstrong and Ant spent 23 years together. Pictured together in 2010
He certainly didn’t trouble himself about other road users when he took to the wheel in 2018 while twice the legal alcohol limit, and crashed into not one but two cars after taking his dogs for a walk in nearby Richmond Park.
He wasn’t thinking about the doctor whose BMW he smashed into head-on after ‘coming round the corner like a rocket’ and whose nine-year-old son cried out to her ‘I’m dying mummy, I’m dying’. Or the family in the other car he hit.
True, he apologised on the steps of the court where he was handed a record £86,000 fine and banned for 20 months from driving after pleading guilty.
But this apology was followed by his ‘pity me’ sob story, about how he was ‘in a bad way’, tormented by demons after becoming addicted to alcohol and pain-killing drugs (that old celebrity chestnut) and was suffering from crippling depression.
Two stints in rehab, and he was rehabilitated – at the helm of shows such as Britain’s Got Talent and I’m A Celebrity, that make him millions, and welcomed back like the Prodigal son.
He moved out of Lisa’s life before taking up with their personal assistant Anne-Marie, a woman who had worked for them both for six years. As one of her friends said, it was the ‘ultimate betrayal’.
Just before Ant announced the birth of his child this week, Lisa posted a cryptic message on Instagram.
‘Be proud of how you’ve been handling these last few months,’ it read. ‘The silent battles you’ve fought, the moments you had to humble yourself, the times you’ve wiped your own tears. Celebrate your strength.’
That speaks to me of a cry for help, a woman in pain, someone we should have sympathy for.
Sympathy that the man Lisa shared the best years of her life with seems sorely to lack. Which surely proves that, at heart, McPartlin is just a spineless ant.