Louise Redknapp says her ex-husband Jamie Redknapp was "the absolute love of [her] life".
The 45-year-old singer divorced soccer star Jamie – with whom she has Charley, 15, and 11-year-old Beau with – in 2017, and has said that whilst she still "adores" her former husband, she felt "invisible" when she was with him because of his superstar status.
She admitted: "I adore him and always will. Jamie was the absolute love of my life. I guess I was happy to be invisible for a little while, but at the same time I felt I was becoming less and less of a person. And being less and less visible was kind of hard to take when I used to be a pop star."
Louise has struggled with her split from Jamie, 46, because she wears her "heart on her sleeve", but says she keeps pushing through for the sake of her brood.
She added: "I can’t not be genuine. I can’t help but wear my heart on my sleeve. And I think that’s probably my biggest downfall in life. I give. It’s just the hardest thing in the world to go through. But I’ve got kids. I have to keep going."
And whilst she’s keeping her head held high, the ‘Stretch’ singer hit out at her critics who slammed her after her break up.
Speaking to The Sun on Sunday’s Fabulous magazine, she said: "I mean Jamie didn’t … He got nothing about it at all, which I’m pleased about because I wouldn’t want him to go through the same things I did. I remember days where I was just begging for it to stop. Just, please. I don’t want to have to come out and defend myself. I wanted to scream: ‘Could you please give us some time? I’m a human being and I’m breaking.’
"No woman wants to be talked about in the way I was. No mum wants people to think she’s left her kids, which of course I hadn’t. I’d walk over the ocean to protect my boys. But I was frightened of fuelling the fire so I kept not saying anything and it just snowballed."