KATIE HIND: Lisa Armstrong longed for a baby with Ant. But she found out he was having a child with his new wife Anne-Marie Colbert on MailOnline. Here, her friends describe her 'two years of hell' in heartbreaking detail...

The news came just a few days after Christmas. At first Lisa Armstrong was able to half-convince herself that it was yet another bit of gossip: after all, there had been plenty of that in the five years since she’d split from her former husband, the TV presenter Ant McPartlin.

Like millions of others, Lisa, a make-up artist who was with the troubled TV golden boy for 23 years, read the story on Mail Online.

But it couldn’t be true could it? Ant, her former soulmate who she’d fallen in love with when they were both teenagers, wouldn’t be so cruel, would he?

However, looking at the pictures of Ant, 48, and his new wife, former assistant Anne-Marie Corbett, 46, happily larking around with the paparazzi and fellow holidaymakers at Heathrow Airport, on their way back from Dubai after a spot of winter sun, Lisa gradually came to realise that he probably could.

Rumours had been circulating for some weeks that Ant and Anne-Marie were expecting their first child together, and judging by Anne-Marie’s more rounded figure and tell-tale loose-fitting jumper, it appeared the chatter might be true.

Baby bump: Ant with Anne Marie at Heathrow Airport last month – The picture that broke Lisa’s heart

This week, those rumours were confirmed when friends of the couple announced they were ‘beyond delighted’ to be expecting a baby in June.

But for Lisa, who’d desperately longed for, and tried for, a baby for years with Ant and had supported him through his struggles with alcohol, depression and an addiction to prescription medication, it was almost certainly the most devastating part of her divorce.

‘It’s utterly heartbreaking and hurtful for Lisa that after everything Ant put her through, he didn’t give her the heads up that he was expecting a baby,’ one close friend told me.

‘Ant didn’t even have the decency to let Lisa know. Like the rest of the world, she had to read about it in the news and you can only imagine what a shock that must have been for her.

‘For someone you’d shared so much with not to tell you something that they knew full well was going to become a huge, huge story in the press is pretty hard to get your head around.

‘It is a horrible shame that Lisa had to find out like this. You can just imagine how hard that would hit her. It is heartbreaking.’

Lisa is famously discreet — despite refusing to sign the non-disclosure agreement Ant wanted her to sign — so we can only guess at the level of shock and betrayal that she must have felt. Especially because, for so many years, she and Ant had so desperately hoped to be parents themselves.

In fact, in 2013, shortly before his showbiz partner Declan Donnelly met wife Ali Astall, Ant revealed how he and Lisa were having fertility problems, saying: ‘There’s a rumour that I’m holding off having kids till Dec finds himself Mrs Right. I love that idea, but I’m afraid it’s not true.

‘Lisa and I would love to have kids. We’re trying. It’s tougher than you think when you get a bit older.’

Sadly, it was never to be and once they hit 40 they accepted that they were not destined to have a family and instead got their beloved chocolate Labrador, Hurley — who Lisa refers to as her ‘baby boy.’

The friend told the Mail: ‘Lisa had spent the whole of her adult life with Ant. It was all she knew and they had really hoped to have children. Lisa didn’t expect Ant to go on and have a baby so it really hit her hard.

‘She went through so much with him and gave him so much, but it is her who will spend the rest of her life childless, not Ant.

‘It is the kind of thing that you never get over.’

As if the situation couldn’t get any harder for Lisa, she and Anne-Marie were once friends. Anne-Marie was Ant’s personal assistant and spent a lot of time at the McPartlins’ home in West London.

Friends of Lisa — who is the highly successful head of make-up for BBC One’s Strictly Come Dancing — say that she was ‘very kind’ to Anne-Marie. She was employed by Ant’s talent agency, YMU, and Lisa and Ant were keen to make her feel ‘at home’ with her job.

Wedding day: Ant and Lisa in 2006

Lisa with her Labrador Hurley

Anne-Marie separated from her husband, Scott, with whom she has two daughters, in October 2017 shortly before Ant and Lisa’s marriage fell apart.

The separation was hard for Lisa, friends say, not least because suddenly she found herself in the uncomfortable position of having the world probing her marriage and private life despite never asking for fame.

When their divorce was finalised in 2018 — leading to a reported multi-million payout for Lisa — one friend tells me there was a time she was the second-most Googled woman in Britain, behind only Meghan Markle.

The scrutiny ramped up further when, in April 2018, Anne-Marie was spotted walking Hurley — a cruel blow for Lisa.

Soon afterwards Anne-Marie and Ant were photographed together, and their status as a couple was confirmed in 2019 when she joined him in Australia — along with her children — where he hosted I’m A Celeb.

They married in August 2021 in a star-studded wedding at the five-star Heckfield Place, in Hampshire.

The fact that Ant still longed for children was even evident in his groom’s speech when he said that Anne-Marie’s now teenage daughters call him ‘Dad’.

‘Ant and Anne-Marie’s relationship came from nowhere for her,’ says an associate of Lisa’s. ‘Things started to change, with hindsight. There were times when Anne-Marie even appeared to dress like Lisa, but she didn’t expect them to get together.

‘To think that now she is going to have Ant’s baby is a lot to get your head around. Lisa does her very best to keep herself to herself but she lived through so much in their 23 years together.’

Ant and Lisa met almost 30 years ago when they were 18 and 19, and on the music circuit.

At the time Lisa was in a band called Deuce, while Ant and Dec were carving out careers as a pop duo PJ and Duncan — their characters from the Byker Grove, the children’s television drama.

They instantly hit it off and soon their romance became public. And despite Lisa’s band not exactly making the big time, she became one of the most written about women in the UK.

Next, she moved in with Ant at his home next door to Dec in Chiswick, west London, and she was at the star’s side as he went on to become one half of the country’s best-loved entertainment acts.

The couple married in the summer of 2006 at Cliveden House, near Maidenhead, Berkshire, with Dec acting as best man.

Somewhere along the line, however, things started to unravel for the couple as Ant battled various addictions and demons.

He’d initially started taking legally prescribed painkillers following a serious knee injury in 2014 and an unsuccessful operation the following year. Over time, however, his dependence on the drugs, together with alcohol, began to spiral out of control.

It was a torrid time for Lisa. Back then, she confided to friends that she spent ‘two years of hell’ fighting to keep her husband Ant on the rails. One friend tells me: ‘Lisa went through hell for the last two years of that she and Ant were together.

She wasn’t sure if her marriage would survive, but she stood by him to try to save him. It has been so hard for her.

‘Ant had been in such a bad way that she often feared the situation was untenable.’

Friends said that Lisa begged her husband to seek professional help and had pleaded with him not to leave their home when he wanted to go out drinking.

‘It was a very difficult time for Lisa, it went on for a very long time. She loved him deeply and wanted to get him better — but she was open with her friends that she didn’t see how the marriage could survive.

But she made her vows and she wasn’t going to give up on those. Lisa did a lot for Ant. She tried pretty much everything she could to help, but it just carried on and on.

‘It was the hardest thing for her to give in and admit the marriage was over. She’s a wonderful woman who was determined to save her husband. She’s so brave.’

In 2017, Ant finally sought help and went into a rehabilitation centre. But it was too late for their marriage, however. Six months later in March 2018, Ant’s life hit a new low when he was arrested and charged with drink-driving after his Mini collided with two other cars, in West London.

Ant, who at the time was reported to earn £130,000 per week, was fined £86,000 and banned from driving for 20 months after pleading guilty to drink-driving.

He said he was ‘truly sorry’ for driving while more than twice the legal limit.

Witnesses described how his black Mini collided with another Mini Cooper before driving straight in front of an oncoming BMW, with a doctor and her nine- year-old son on board.

Although no one was seriously injured, the driver of the other Mini was said to be in ‘deep shock’ and said they believed they could have died in the accident.

Ant later pulled out of hosting ITV reality series I’m A Celebrity alongside Dec in Australia, making way for Holly Willoughby to take over temporarily.

While Lisa, despite being offered a multitude of opportunities to tell her side of the story, has remained silent on the matter, their split remains acrimonious — and ongoing. He may have two new dogs, Maltipoos (Maltese and poodle crossbreeds), called Milo and Bumble, but Ant still won’t let Lisa have Hurley full-time.

The pair agreed to share the dog after their marriage collapsed, but Lisa wants Hurley to live solely with her. However, it is understood Ant is refusing to give up shared custody.

Currently, the dog spends half the time at Ant’s £6million mansion in Wimbledon, South-West London, and the other half at Lisa’s West London home, with the TV presenter’s chauffeur reportedly doing the handover so the exes don’t have to see each other.

A make-up artist friend added: ‘Lisa is one of the strongest women you can imagine, but a couple of years ago cracks were showing and she wasn’t herself so much.

‘It was clear back then that there were problems that were getting her down, but she didn’t want to give up on Ant.

‘She has been to hell and back over the past couple of years. We all just wanted to scoop her up and give her a big hug.’

If ever there was a time that Lisa needed one of those, it’s now.