Whenever the birthdays of her personal assistant's two daughters came around, Lisa Armstrong would buy them lavish presents. She would do the same at Christmasat.
It was Lisa's way of thanking the girls' mother, Anne-Marie Corbett, for the job she did caring for her and her husband. Ant McPartlin.
She always enjoyed picking out presents for Poppy and Daisy, who are two years apart and were in primary school at the time.
“Lisa sent Christmas and birthday presents to Anne-Marie's girls every year,” says a close friend.
Ant McPartlin cradles his new son in a photo on Instagram that also shows off his family tree tattoo with the names of his wife and her two daughters
'She enjoyed doing it. She also showered Anne-Marie with gifts and even took her on holiday. Lisa and Anne-Marie were very good friends, she was a trusted part of the set-up.
How things have changed. Because this is of course the same Anne-Marie who married Britain's Got Talent presenter Ant in 2021 after his bitter divorce from Lisa. And that Tuesday morning, she gave birth to Ant's first child: a boy named Wilder Patrick.
The TV favorite shared the news with his millions of Instagram followers and published an artsy black and white photo of him cuddling the child, showing off a tattoo on his shoulder of a tree with Anne-Marie's nickname 'Amzie'. as well as Poppy and Daisy's names engraved in it. The girls, who are now teenagers and call Ant “Daddy,” have a younger brother.
Alongside the photo of the newborn, the star wrote on the joint Instagram account he shares with sidekick Declan Donnelly: “Welcome to the family,” adding that the little boy was born at 8.54am on Tuesday.
Ant then wrote: 'Baby is beautiful, mummy is a legend, sisters are over the moon. Dad's a mess!'
The post must have deeply affected poor Lisa. Because for her, the birth of little Wilder in the London Clinic was a painful reminder of how, at the age of 47, she remains childless – and it devastates her.
As another friend of Lisa's said to me, “It's a tragedy. She missed her chance to have a child and now she has to watch Ant show off that tattoo on social media. He really didn't have to do that.
“It feels like he was rubbing her face in it. You have to remember that we are talking about a story of great sadness, she gave Ant everything and ended up with an empty cradle. It's absolutely heartbreaking.'
Pregnant Anne-Marie Corbett and Ant on a date night in central London last month
To make matters worse, Lisa – the lead make-up artist on the BBC show Strictly Come Dancing – only found out Anne-Marie was pregnant after reading about it in the Mail.
For a while she was in denial.
“Lisa finds it painful and heartbreaking that Ant, after everything he has done to her, did not let her know that he was going to be a father,” the friend said.
'It all feels very insulting. Ant had Lisa's best years. It feels like the ultimate betrayal. Plus, congratulate all their old friends Anne-Marie and Ant on social media.”
Well wishes poured in from showbusiness friends including Davina McCall, This Morning's Cat Deeley, Britain's Got Talent judge Alesha Dixon, Jamie Redknapp and many more.
Adding to the poignancy is the fact that when they were happy together, Ant made no secret of the fact that he and Lisa were desperate to have children and tried for years to conceive.
Speaking in 2013 – seven years after the couple married – he was remarkably candid about the matter: 'There's a rumor going around that we do everything together and I'm waiting to have children until Dec finds himself Mrs Right.
'I like that idea, but I'm afraid it's not true. Lisa and I really want children. Tried. It's harder than you think when you get older. We've been trying for a while, so fingers crossed.'
No matter how many fingers Lisa and Ant crossed, their dream of becoming parents wouldn't come true, even though they spent 23 years together.
And to make matters worse, trolls on social media started blaming her for not being able to have children. “She went through so much trying to have a child, and then she had to put up with people guessing about her ability to have children,” says a friend who insists Lisa had no fertility problems.
Inevitably, it all seemed so different when she started dating Ant in 1994, when her new boyfriend was just 18.
They met on the music circuit. Lisa was in a band called Deuce at the time, while Ant and Dec made a career as a pop duo known as PJ and Duncan – their characters from the 1990s hit children's series Byker Grove, in which they first appeared on television.
Despite her impressive career as a make-up artist, Lisa was constantly by Ant's side to support him as he rose to become one half of the country's most loved entertainment act. The couple married in the summer of 2006 at Cliveden House, near Maidenhead, Berkshire, with Dec acting as best man.
To the outside world they had everything, but as the years passed it became clear that Ant had serious problems.
Ant and Lisa Armstrong, pictured in 2015, were childless when they filed for divorce in 2018 after 11 years of marriage
Lisa later found love with ex-partner James Green. He ended their relationship last year
Both he and Lisa enjoyed a boozy night out at their local pubs in Chiswick, West London, but Ant soon found himself struggling with his demons and became addicted to alcohol.
Lisa selflessly cared for Ant during this time.
She confided to friends that she fought for “two hellish years” to keep her ex-husband on track as his drinking and addiction to prescription drugs spiraled out of control.
While his alcoholism was initially hidden from the public, Ant was arrested and charged with drink driving in March 2018 after his Mini collided with two other cars in South West London while he was twice the legal alcohol limit, after walking his dogs had taken for a walk in nearby Richmond Park.
The presenter was photographed staggering out of the car looking disheveled after the collision and was handed a record £86,000 fine at Wimbledon Magistrates' Court.
Although he had previously sought help for the alcohol abuse, drug addiction and depression, it was the crash and subsequent publicity that led him to enter rehab.
And all the time Lisa tried to help him. A make-up artist friend of Lisa's said: 'She's been through hell. She wasn't sure if her marriage would survive, but she supported him in an attempt to save him. It was so hard for her. Ant was in such bad shape that she often feared the situation was untenable.'
Friends said she begged the star to seek professional help and begged him not to leave their £10million home if he wanted to go drinking. The friend added: 'It was a very difficult time for Lisa, it all took a while.
'She had seen for years that Ant was down and that things were starting to get difficult for him. She loved him very much and wanted to make him better.
'They had been together since they were teenagers, they went through highs and lows. Lisa was by his side throughout his super-successful career.”
It goes without saying that Lisa was devastated when she learned that Ant was dating Anne-Marie, who worked for the couple for six years and even organized their tenth wedding anniversary in 2016.
She considered Anne-Marie and her then-husband Scott Corbett to be close friends, but rumors of the relationship started in 2018 after Ant split from Lisa, and the romance was confirmed by Ant's publicist in June 2018.
Three years later, Anne-Marie and Ant married in a star-studded ceremony in Heckfield, Hampshire.
Lisa shared a cryptic message on the same day her ex-husband Ant revealed the happy news that he had become a father
Dec – who has two children, Isla, five, and Jack, one, with wife Ali Astall – was the best man and Anne-Marie's daughters were bridesmaids. Guests included Holly Willoughby, Phillip Schofield, Frank Lampard and Eamonn Holmes.
Lisa, meanwhile, has enjoyed her own romances, but last August she was left heartbroken when her partner, an electrician named James Green, ended their three-year relationship.
She is believed to have been single since then.
Although Lisa disputes reports that she received a £31million settlement from Ant when they divorced, she did receive a significant sum.
Earlier this week she put their former marital home in west London – which she got as part of her deal – on the market for £4 million.
However, Lisa doesn't like money. 'She's not flashy and doesn't mind being rich. Besides, what price can you put on motherhood?' said a friend. “Some would say she did very well after her divorce.
“Maybe financially, but emotionally it devastated her.”
And yet every time Ant does something in his personal life, Lisa is back in the spotlight.
She has confided in friends that she struggles with attention, and said that when she and Ant split six years ago, she was the most Googled woman in Britain after Meghan Markle.
Maybe that's why she decided to take a sunny holiday to Portugal yesterday.
Her journey came after an Instagram post on Tuesday – just hours before Ant revealed his news – which explained she is going through “silent battles”, which she described in a cryptic post.
“Be proud of how you have acted over the past few months,” it said.
“The silent battles you fought, the moments you had to humble yourself, the times you wiped your own tears. Celebrate your power.”
For now, Lisa has her beloved chocolate Labrador Hurley to keep a smile on her face.
She and Ant got him after realizing they weren't going to be parents and currently share custody of him, despite Ant still having two puppies, Milo and Bumble.
“Lisa loves that dog so much,” the friend says.
“If there's anything that will keep her going through this difficult time, it's him.”