The wife of scandal-hit Match of the Day pundit Jermaine Jenas is a former party-loving underwear model who was close friends with glamour girls Katie Price and Lauren Pope.
On Friday it was revealed Ellie Penfold is sticking by her husband after he was sacked by the BBC from his £190,000 a year job for inappropriate behaviour.
The couple have been married for 13 years and share three children – two daughters, Geneva and Olivia, plus baby son Jacob – and have posed up together for glossy magazine shoots inside their £7million Hertfordshire home.
But their cosy family existence is a far cry from the pair’s former life, when Ellie was a fixture on the London party scene alongside her model pals.
Indeed, the couple met in a nightclub in 2008 shortly after Jenas’s split from girlfriend of six years Sabrina Keogh, the mother of his eldest daughter Sancha who now lives in the US.
Speaking to OK magazine shortly after popping the question in Cannes in 2009 about the moment he locked eyes on Penfold, Jenas said: ‘I was sitting down and I turned around to see this lady and I thought to myself, “Yes please!”‘
‘I plucked up the courage to speak to her but she didn’t give me the time of day. I eventually got her number though.’
And Penfold spoke just as gushingly about Jenas, revealing he was a big romantic.
She said: ‘He’s a real sweetheart and is always doing romantic things. I’ll often come home to find red roses and chocolates on our bed.’
Londoner Penfold appeared alongside Price in the latter’s infamous swimsuit launches, as well as underwear shoots also featuring former Towie star Pope, as the pals became close in the late noughties.
She also attended film premieres with Price and Liberty X singer Michelle Heaton, including The Hunger Games, in 2012.
But after falling for Jenas and having a family, Penfold stepped away from the nightclub scene and her relationship with Price to concentrate on bringing up the pair’s children and supporting her husband’s media career.
It was a decision she did not regret as she felt partying days were behind her.
A source close to Penfold told : ‘She just felt that was another era of her life.
‘Ellie still likes a night out but partying with her model pals in fancy nightclubs was something she just outgrew.’
However, Jenas revealed last year during an interview with that his socialising after filming The One Show had caused a rift between the couple.
Indeed, he explained they had to work through their differences, with Jenas admitting his fledgling TV career and need to schmooze with industry figures while his wife stayed at home with their kids didn’t go down well.
He explained: ‘I would say up until about five years ago it was quite stressful for us both.
‘There was a lot of competing going on in our relationship and a lot of ‘you get to do this’ or ‘you don’t do this.
‘It was a lot to do with the kids and the fact that I had this new career starting and I was out and about and meeting new people and going to shows… it was all glitzy but for my wife it was like nappies, milk… I am a very hands-on dad and I’m always trying to help but still she wasn’t getting that fulfilment in her own life.
‘I had to address it and over the last five years I always say to her once or twice or year just go away for three days or something.
‘In the summer and coming up now she will usual go to Ibiza with her mates and have a good blowout and that’s for her not to have to wake up or think about the kids, and I’ve just come back from Scotland playing three days of golf and she will say the same to me, go and play golf, relax, enjoy yourself.’
Jenas, who also has an elder daughter Sancha, 16, from a previous relationship that resides in the US, said the secret to protecting their marriage was learning to communicate ‘before the crisis hit’ and now the couple resist ‘game playing’ in favour of a peaceful household.
He added: ‘There was a lot of waiting before, we would wait and wait and neither of us knew what was wrong and then that escalated into the biggest argument ever.
‘We decided to start having a conversation whenever we felt anything. She would say, “Jermaine, I feel like I’m not seeing you enough” or “I feel like I’m doing too much around the house, I’m not getting my life back enough” and just getting there before the crisis hit.
‘We are 15 years deep into our relationship and there isn’t anything we won’t talk about whatever the frustration may be, we will have that conversation but that has only happened in time. It actually came from being sick of arguing.
‘When you’re in those types of arguments where you’re like, I don’t know why we’re arguing but I’m actually bored of it, and this is a really easy fix.
‘This is my problem and can you help, more of that mentality rather than the game-playing and the mind games.
‘Plus, my social life has settled down so much. There was a point where I might finish work and meet some mates in London and get in at like 11pm and she would do the school run and then I’d do it again two days later and all of a sudden in her mind she is thinking I’m just going out and taking the mick.
‘My life is a bit simpler as well, which helped.’
Jenas is now desperately trying to salvage his career following his shock axing from the BBC.
The once touted future Match of the Day host said on Thursday his future and reputation was very much in the hands of lawyers fighting his case.
Speaking during an appearance on talkSPORT shortly after news of his axing broke, he said: ‘I can’t really talk about it.
‘I, as you can probably see, am not happy about it.
‘But currently as it stands I’m going to have to let the lawyers deal with it.
‘You know, there’s two sides to every story as we know. So that’s all I can say right now.’
Asked about the allegation itself, Jenas said: ‘Like I said, I’m not happy about this situation.
‘I’m going to be speaking to my lawyers about it is all I can say right now.’