Jamie Redknapp’s pals ‘Strictly curse’ warning when Louise danced with Kevin Clifton
Louise Redknapp and her husband Jamie seemed to have one of the strongest marriages in showbiz – but it crumbled after the former Eternal singer appeared on Strictly
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Louise Redknapp and her husband Jamie had one of the most adorable marriages in showbiz.
After meeting in their early 20s, the couple married in an intimate ceremony in Bermuda in 1998 when Louise was just 23.
At the time, she was a huge pop star after finding fame with girl group, Eternal, before leaving the band and launching her own solo career.
Meanwhile, Jamie was a Premier League footballer at the top of his game and they seemed like the perfect couple.
Heartbreakingly, they struggled for years to have a baby when Louise was diagnosed with the painful condition, endometrisiosis, which can make it difficult to conceive.
But when baby Charley arrived six years after Jamie and Louise tied the knot, the couple couldn’t have been happier.
Their family was completed in 2009 when they gave birth to baby Beau.
After her devastating struggles to become a mum, Louise turned her back on her old showbiz life and focused all her attention on her family.
For 18 years the couple seemed blissfully happy – but after Louise appeared on BBC’s Strictly, their marriage crumbled and the pair are now divorced.
Jamie and Louise are among the most high profile victims of the so called ‘Strictly curse’ – and it seems the former footballer’s friends had warned him about the risks.
After retiring from professional football Jamie carved out a successful career as a pundit and also regularly appears on panel shows.
But then Louise stepped back into the limelight when she competed on Strictly Coming Dancing and made it all the way to the final.
She was partnered with Kevin Clifton and they hit it off instantly and with their chemistry and stunning moves on the dancefloor soon became fan favourites.
Behind the scenes, Louise hoped her Strictly experience would finally mean she would become a mum to a baby girl.
Dubbing Kevin the ‘fertility king,’ Louise joked about the conspiracy that Kevin could lead to her and Jamie having a daughter as his last two partners – Frankie Bridge and Kellie Bright – fell pregnant shortly after the show.
“Maybe he’s the good luck charm I need to get that girl I really want,” Louise told The Sun.
“Jamie would love another baby, I’m not getting any younger so we’ll see what happens. But I’m in Strictly shape now so we’ll see.”
As she progressed in the BBC competition, Louise started to relish her time back in the limelight and she has since said the show gave her a renewed sense of self confidence.
Louise hailed Strictly her ‘saviour’ and revelled in returning to the stage after 12 years of ‘doing the mum thing’ – with Kevin acting as a constant source of support.
As the competition heated up, Louise and Kevin grew even closer with the pair training for hours each day and wowing audiences with their routines every Saturday night.
And while both rubbished rumours of any spark between them, it didn’t stop the wagging tongues.
Among those were Jamie’s close pals, James Corden, Freddie Flintoff and Jack Whitehall, who relentlessly teased him about the so-called Strictly ‘curse’.
At the time Louise said: “I could see Jamie getting angrier and angrier with the jokes.”
But she insisted the couple laughed off any suggestion she would cheat.
Then, just months after she reached the finals of Strictly, Louise’s marriage to Jamie crumbled.
She admitted in an emotional interview that her appearance on the show had made her re-evaluate her entire life.
Louise said she had grown tired of being a “Stepford wife”, striving to always be the perfect wife and mum.
She added: “I wanted kids so much, I was happy to put everything on hold for them.”
But as Jamie’s media career had bloomed, Louise admitted she had struggled with his success and missed being a performer.
She said, “Standing by and watching Jamie become this entertainment star was pretty hard. I was proud of him, but there was part of me thinking, ‘that’s my world’.
“I could see the excitement he got out of it and I knew how that felt. But it wasn’t me feeling it anymore.”
And once she started Strictly, she felt ‘physically sick’ at the thought she’d never perform again.
Louise initially confirmed the couple were living apart in October and filed for divorce in December 2017.
And it was not the only chance Louise made. She relaunched her career, releasing new music and appearing in the West End.
Describing her decision to leave Jamie and restart her career as the “first selfish thing I’ve done”, she admitted that although nobody “understood”, she felt like she’s finally “come back to who I really am”.
Heartbreakingly, despite their close relationship on Strictly, Louise and Kevin no longer speak.
Louise and Kevin were last pictured together in December 2018, when the singer was invited to meet up with her former Strictly partner and his parents for the annual Clifton’s Dance Academy Annual Christmas Ball in Grimsby.
MirrorCeleb