Stacey Solomon has been a household name for 16 years after she was catapulted to stardom thanks to her stint on The X Factor. Sort Your Life Out with Stacey Solomon will be returning this evening, Tuesday, February 11, at 8pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer with another family in need of decluttering their three-bedroom home in the hope of a more organised future. As the hit reality series makes a comeback, fans are curious to know more in depth about the presenter’s personal life.
Born in October 1989, in Dageham, Essex, Stacey is the daughter of David Solomon and Fiona Nash who worked as a photographer and a nurse respectively, along with siblings Matthew and Jemma. Sadly when Stacey was little, she suffered from terrible anxiety where she would spend up to six hours a day worrying about death. Writing in her column for The Sun, she shared: “I remember being scared of dying at a very young age, maybe even five or six. I had no traumatic childhood experiences.
“There's not a point in my childhood where my mortality was questioned, but the fear was always there.”. Thankfully after seeing a therapist and her GP, Stacey was able to start managing her anxiety, recognising her triggers and what to do to stop the intrusive thoughts. “Before bed I try and read the most brain-hurty, intelligent book I can,” she explained. “One that’s so hard to read no other thoughts can creep into my mind. After 10 pages I’m usually exhausted and fall asleep.”.
Stacey became pregnant when she was just 17-years-old with her first son Zachary, who she had with her ex-partner Dean Cox, breaking up before he was born. Four years ago, the star opened up on the “shame” that she felt at the time, sharing that she felt “totally out of control”. Speaking on Loose Women, she said: “I just remember feeling so ashamed. “I know that sounds awful but when I was pregnant with Zach, all I felt the whole way through was shame.
“I looked like a baby as well. I looked about six. I think people just looked and were like, ‘Ugh, why is she pregnant?’ Maybe it’s a bit of trauma I just haven’t addressed.”. Stacey became famous overnight in 2009 when she auditioned for The X Factor in front of the likes of Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh and came in third place. However, her audition nearly didn’t happen as the 35-year-old explained: “I don’t know if it was one in the morning or whenever it was, it was really late at night, I was the last person to be seen and the judges were so tired, they had seen thousands of people all day.
“I think what they were saying was that they wanted to end the night, that was it and go home and London was done. “But one of the producers really pushed for them to see me and just wait to see me which changed my life.”. Stacey went on to have another son, Leighton, with her ex-fiancé Aaron Barham but their relationship came to an end in 2014. She then went on to date former EastEnders star Joe Swash who she initially met while working on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!, with Stacey winning the show in 2010.
Stacey and Joe tied the knot in 2022 and now have three children together, Rex, Rose and Belle but the initial proposal didn’t exactly go as planned. Opening up on BBC’s Would I Lie To You, Stacey laughed: “I nearly broke up with my husband while he was trying to propose to me.”. Explaining that it was during the coronavirus lockdown in 2020, she continued: “It was that special time of year, but we were all confined to our homes due to the restrictions.
“Every day, we would take a long walk through the nearby woods to escape the daily grind and find a bit of normalcy. "This one Christmas Eve day while I was in the thick of being really busy. He wanted to go for a wood walk, and I asked if this could wait. it’s Christmas Eve, but anyway, we went on a walk, and all these flowers were laid out. “So I said, ‘I think someone has passed’. He said, ‘Let’s go and have a look’.
"I said, ‘What the hell is wrong with you? I’m not walking through that’. I said, ‘I don't know if I can be with a person like you who gets off on someone else's misfortune. “I was expecting a shrine, but Joe had put the flowers out to propose to me.”. Sort Your Life Out With Stacey Solomon season five premieres on Tuesday, February 11, at 8pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. Get the biggest TV headlines, recaps and insider knowledge straight to your inbox.
