Louise Redknapp admits she regrets not ‘trying harder’ to save her marriage to ex-husband Jamie

Louise Redknapp has admitted she ‘ran’ from her 21 year marriage to ex-husband Jamie and that she wishes she’d ‘tried harder’ to save it.

In a candid chat with You magazine, Louise, 46, detailed her feelings about the split, three years on.

Having rediscovered her love for herself following her stint on Strictly Come Dancing, the singer admitted: ‘I didn’t want to lose so much of the good feeling. Before anyone could stop me, I just ran, as fast as the wind would take me. I never once looked behind, until maybe too late.

‘I should have paused for a minute and thought about other people and had just a bit more time to work out why I felt I couldn’t do it any more. All I know is, I wish I’d tried [to save the marriage].’

She added: ‘I want to say to anybody who is thinking of running: “Just slow down. Don’t run.” Because once you run too fast, you can’t make up the ground you’ve lost. 

‘Stop, say what you need, say what you think, don’t be afraid to say what’s really going on. You don’t have to be quiet.’

Louise also admitted she ‘f**ked things up’. Speaking about her post-divorce return to performing, she said: ‘I don’t think I would have been in the West End or made a new album if I hadn’t maybe f**ked things up. There’s a part of you that thrives on the fight, to make you what you are.’ 

Louise explained that she was so tormented by her split that she contemplated ending it all by stepping out in front of a bus.

But the prospect of leaving her sons Charley, now 16, and Beau, now 12, without a mother forced her to brush aside her suicidal thoughts.

Recalling her turmoil, she said: ‘I would be standing in Central London, watching the buses whizz past and I would wonder whether it would be easier for a bus to take me out.

‘All it would take was for me to step out at the wrong moment and it would all be over.’

Asked if suicide was a genuine possibility, she replied: ‘I think so, for a split second. I was like, “I would really like this all to go away.”

‘But I’ve got two little men I know need me more than anything. That’s where my selfishness stops – when it comes to them.

‘I remember looking at Selfridges and the buses and being like, “God, I’ve got two people that need me, and they’re the loves of my life, so…” They’re the only thing that kept me going. Them and my mum.’

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