Jill Halfpenny was seen for the first time with her new partner Ian McAllister on Friday, after revealing she’s ‘deeply in love’ with the new man in her life.
The actress, 49, recently revealed she’s ‘finally found love and happiness again’ following the tragic death of Matt Janes.
Jill, who lost her former partner Matt to a fatal heart attack in 2017, previously shared Matt told her he’d want her to ‘find someone else and be happy’ if anything were to happen to him.
The new couple looked happier than ever as they made their first public appearance in Stockton-on-Tees.
Jill looked incredibly stylish in a smart black suit jacket and tie as she posed next to the handsome marketing executive, 48.
Jill Halfpenny, 49, was seen for the first time with her new partner Ian McAllister, 48, on Friday, after revealing she’s ‘deeply in love’ with the new man in her life
Jill, who lost her former partner Matt Janes to a fatal heart attack in 2017, previously shared he told her he’d want her to ‘find someone else and be happy’ if anything were to happen to him
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Jill Halfpenny says sudden death of her husband in 2017 helped her finally grieve her father
Ian, a keen runner who has raised significant sums for charity, is head of marketing at the Duchess of Northumberland’s Alnwick Garden, one of the north’s most popular tourist attractions.
The former Byker Grove and Eastenders star has told how she and Ian had a ‘random and unexpected meeting’ last year which led to her falling in love and realising that she could be happy again without feeling guilt.
In the six years since the sudden loss of Matt, who collapsed in the gym aged just 43, she had felt moving on with someone else would be a ‘betrayal’ and spent time working through her grief.
In her new autobiography, A Life Reimagined, she tells how she was able to talk to Ian about the loss of Matt and the sudden death of her father, Colin, who died aged 36 from a heart attack playing football when she was only four.
She said that Ian was also able to ‘share his losses’ with her as their relationship progressed.
He has raised hundreds of pounds in memory of his eight-year-old nephew Guy Comber, who died in 2013.
In her memoir, Jill tells how meeting him had a transformative effect on her life.
She said: ‘For the first time since Matt died I have met someone and fallen in love. We met eleven days after I was offered this book deal and it was a random and unexpected meeting. His name is Ian and he is kind and funny and intelligent.
The actress recently revealed she’s ‘finally found love and happiness again’ following the tragic death of Matt
The new couple looked happier than ever as they made their first public appearance in Stockton-on-Tees
Jill looked incredibly stylish in a smart black suit jacket and tie as she posed next to the handsome marketing executive
The former Byker Grove and Eastenders star has told how she and Ian had a ‘random and unexpected meeting’ last year which led to her falling in love and realising that she could be happy again without feeling guilt
In the six years since the sudden loss of Matt, who collapsed in the gym aged just 43, she had felt moving on with someone else would be a ‘betrayal’ and spent time working through her grief
In her new autobiography, A Life Reimagined, she tells how she was able to talk to Ian about the loss of Matt and the sudden death of her father, Colin
In her memoir, Jill tells how meeting him had a transformative effect on her life
Read More
Jill Halfpenny discusses finding love again after the death of her partner Matt Janes
‘The relationship has helped me understand the importance of all the work I have done before I met him. I can allow myself to be happy and in love without feeling any guilt.
‘I can be vulnerable and scared and understand where it’s coming from. I can be free and open, allowing myself to be seen without fear of abandonment. We are in the very early stages of our relationship and even though I know the story will write itself, I sincerely hope it will be a long and exciting one.
‘My experience of losing Dad and Matt means I can either live in dread that this new love will be taken away from me or I can cherish the time we do have together, knowing that life is precious. I choose the latter.
‘One of the things I was most scared of in a new relationship was him not being able to handle me talking about Matt.
‘I needn’t have worried. Ian has asked about Matt from the very beginning. About our time together, what he was like, what we did together. I have never once felt as though he sees him as a threat and it makes me have even more admiration for him.
‘We talk freely about my dad too and Ian shared his losses with me. We have both reached an age where loss is inevitable in our lives and to share them is a great gift.’
Losing her father led to a battle with drink later in life for Jill, who said she felt a ‘weight lifted off her shoulders’ when she plucked up the courage to admit she was an alcoholic in an AA meeting in 2013.
She told how she could see herself becoming a ‘different person’ every time she would binge drink to escape her normality.
Jill has now revealed that losing Matt in the same way forced to confront grieving her father (Pictured, the actress in 2016)
Jill said she felt like she met new love Ian at the ‘perfect time’ (pictured, the couple together)
In her book, she writes: ‘I began to see that I became a different person when I drank and I didn’t always like who I became.
‘For a long time, alcohol had helped me escape, to stop thinking. Conversely, I thought it also helped me access all the things that lay dormant inside me.’
Though it took several meetings before she could say the words ‘My name is Jill and I’m an alcoholic’, she admits sharing it was the best thing she ever did.
Ian, who lives in Northumberland, began his career in recruitment with MTV, worked on Ozzy Osbourne’s fly-on-the-wall series, set up his own marketing business and then began working for Alnwick Garden.
Appearing on The One Show last month, Jill confirmed she is ‘in love’ again although did not give any details on her new relationship.
She said: ‘When you lose a partner, a romantic relationship, it can sometimes feel slightly like a betrayal if you move on and it’s not.
‘You’re absolutely allowed to be happy again. If you do the process and the healing and the work, you can go into another relationship and be happy again.
‘If you haven’t managed to do that work, there’ll always be a part of you somewhere else. I feel I do deserve to be happy and I do feel happy and it’s really nice to be in love again.’