Holding hands in the garden of their beautiful family home, Fearne Cotton and Jesse Wood gazed 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 in celebration of the couple’s tenth wedding anniversary. ‘Wish we could do it all again,’ Fearne, 43, wrote, wistfully.
If there was any hint of marital trouble, it was carefully constructed not to show it. Which is why the revelation on Friday that Fearne and 48-year-old Jesse – the son of Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood and the legendary rock ’n’ roll groupie Krissy Findlay – have split has come as rather a shock.
Just two days ago, after all, Fearne was still wearing her wedding ring in photographs uploaded to social media.
And the split seems to have blindsided not just their fans, but those who knew the pair, too.
‘It’s with a heavy heart that I let you all know that Jesse and I are ending our marriage,’ Fearne told her 3.9 million followers on Instagram. ‘Our priority has been, and will always be, our children.’
Fearne Cotton and Jesse Wood at their wedding in 2014
To the outside world, at least, they were the idyllic blended 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 rows, mental health battles and a complete overhaul of their once-hedonistic lifestyles which, some suggest, could hint at the reasons for their apparently abrupt separation.
‘They are a lovely couple,’ explained one friend of the former children’s television star. ‘But Fearne has changed a lot since they got together. She was a kind of rock chick when they first met and now she has turned into a bit of a hippy dippy therapy type.’
What is true is that the couple are no longer the people they were when they met in Ibiza in 2011.
Jesse had separated from Tilly the previous year, and Fearne, single after breaking up with her fiance, 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 entirely of vodka and cigarettes.
Sources say Fearne – the first female presenter of the Radio One Chart Show who has also hosted Top Of The Pops and was a regular on ITV panel show Celebrity Juice – was instantly ‘besotted’.
Their differences didn’t seem to matter. Fearne had been brought up in the leafy London suburb of Eastcote with her sign-writer dad Mick and therapist mum Lyn, but she was welcomed into the Wood family and got on ‘famously’ with Ronnie and his wife Sally, and Jesse’s younger sister Leah.
The couple slipped back into their wedding outfits – minus Jesse’s shoes – to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary five months ago
One friend who knew her growing up said: ‘Fearne was a nice girl but she wasn’t that cool.
‘She was a bit stage school, a bit of a bod, really. She didn’t have that cool edge but then, all of a sudden, she was dating a Rolling Stones “nepo baby”.
‘They were the perfect match and those who knew them thought they would be together forever. Fearne clicked with Jesse’s family immediately. It was all so perfect.’
Until then, Fearne had a tricky relationship history.
In 2003, as she was catapulted to fame on kids’ programme, The Saturday Show, her then-boyfriend Peter Brame, who had starred on BBC talent series Fame Academy, admitted smoking crack cocaine on a wild night out with glamour models.
Worse was to come after her split from Lostprophets frontman Ian Watkins, when he was jailed for 29 years for a string of child sex offences, including the attempted rape of a baby.
Jesse, five years her senior and a man comfortable with his emotional side, was the perfect antidote.
A friend tells me: ‘Fearne was so happy when she met Jesse, she literally wouldn’t stop smiling. He was handsome and kind, she had been really bruised by what had happened to her in the past with Ian and Pete.
‘Fearne had just turned 30, and was able to put her horrid relationships behind her and find happiness.’
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Fearne Cotton had 'feared for her marriage' with husband Jesse Wood for some time
They had their first child, Rex, in February 2013, and married the following summer at Richmond Registry Office in front of celebrity guests including her Celebrity Juice co-host Keith Lemon, presenter Dermot O’Leary and former This Morning star Holly Willoughby, then a very close friend.
Their daughter Honey arrived a year later, in 2015, when Fearne announced she would be leaving Radio 1 after a decade.
She later admitted presenting was ‘literally ruining my mind’, though she returned to host a weekly Sounds Of The 90s show on Radio 2.
Since then, the former party girl has set about transforming herself with healthy eating, yoga, mindfulness and meditation. Indeed, her newfound happiness from being with Jesse and their children was thought to be the inspiration behind her podcast, Happy Place, which has grown into a brand that has a clothing range and even an annual festival.
Fearne has been candid about her depression, anxiety and panic attacks and admitted to having different types of therapy to deal with things that have ‘happened to her in the past’.
Jesse, who she described as a ‘free spirit’, was credited as a great support in her 2017 book, Happy.
Writing that she felt ‘drained, anti-social and alienated’ during her darkest days, she added: ‘My husband is key because he always tells me when I’ve gone a bit off-centre or if I’m being a bit manic, and it really helps to have someone who’s very honest with me.
‘I’m exceptionally lucky that I met someone who’s so unbelievably free-spirited and curious about life and open-minded. He’s constantly a good soundboard and has a very positive outlook.’
Not that it was always the case. Fearne once described how, in 2019, the couple had a two-hour screaming row in a park which left her wondering ‘where the love had gone’ – and worried it wouldn’t return.
She has also admitted that their sex life fizzled out during the pandemic.
Two weeks ago Fearne went on social media to announce that she has two benign tumours on her jaw
Further tweaks to their lifestyle came when they turned vegan together in 2021.
Jesse, a recovering alcoholic, no longer drinks and today Fearne also drinks rarely.
She has revealed that, while she ‘still loves a good party’, she likes to be tucked up in bed by 9.30pm. It’s a long way from her hedonistic heyday.
Whether these wholesale changes have contributed to their marriage rift is unclear.
It is also curious that the split announcement came less than two weeks after Fearne revealed she was having surgery to remove two benign tumours on her jawline.
Was the relationship already over by then – or did something happen in the aftermath which made Fearne take decisive action?
Certainly listeners to her podcast, which last summer hit 100million downloads, now expect her to be completely honest with them – and, with a lucrative brand on her hands, she would not have wanted to betray them by holding back.
As one source said: ‘For Fearne it was potentially damaging to her brand to keep something like that from her followers who adore and trust her.’
But there has been, as yet, 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, everyone hopes the marriage ends amicably.’