Una Healy, who we have seen in a whole new light as she takes on some terrifying challenges in new Netflix reality show Celebrity Bear Hunt, has opened up in an exclusive interview about her painful divorce from her husband of six years, rugby player Ben Foden. Opening up with searing honesty about the realities of being a single mum of two since the couple's 2018 divorce, the former Saturdays reflected on that difficult time, telling OK! during an exclusive photoshoot,“It doesn’t matter if you’re in the public eye or not, divorce is a difficult, heartbreaking process. But you move on – there’s no point in dwelling on the past.”.
Una, 43, who has been based in Ireland since 2020, added that she is currently “very happy on her own” with their children – daughter Aoife, 12, and son Tadhg,10. “I have lots of friends in the same position, I’m not ‘poor me’.”. The singer, who admitted that co-parenting is trickier with her ex Ben currently based in the US with his second wife Jackie and their daughters Farrah, four, and one-year-old Olympia, revealed, “I get on with Ben as best I can for the sake of the children. I want them to love him and for him to be there as much as he can for them. It’s unfortunate that he lives so far away.
“We don’t have the ‘every other weekend’ set-up. He sees them at Christmas and in the summer. But Ben’s considering moving back to the UK and I really hope he does. It would be better for everyone.”. Life may not have panned out as she'd imagined, but the 43-year-old, who has been based in Ireland since 2020 following her painful divorce two years previously, admits that she loves her very 'normal' life in her hometown, Thurles.
“My life is so... normal. I’m living in the house I grew up in. Aoife goes to my old school, and Tadhg goes to the boys’ school in town. They’re proper Irish kids now, though they were born in the UK. Tadhg loves his hurling. It’s very cute.”. Despite arriving in Ireland with “full-on” English accents, she says the children now have a stronger Irish accent than she does, Una says. “They love it here. They’re really happy and it’s a quiet, slow-paced life. My two don’t even remember The Saturdays. I’m not ‘cool’, I’m just ‘Mammy’ here.”.
Una, who recently split from her boyfriend of several months, retired jockey Aidan Coleman, says she is happily single at the moment - and cherishing her close friendships in her life. “There’s a lot of emphasis on romantic relationships, but a lot of my childhood friends, who have been through everything with me, are like my soulmates. One day, yes, I would like to find my person, but I’m very whole as I am, with my beautiful children.”.
Speaking candidly to The Sun’s Fabulous magazine in 2020 about her agonising divorce, she admitted: “When you’re in hell, you can’t go round it, you have to go through it. It’s the only way. For the sake of the kids I had to stay strong. "Obviously they’ve seen me upset, and there have been moments where I’ve just started crying, but both of them would come up and give me a hug or write little notes saying ‘I love you’ and I knew I had to pull myself out of it. Everything is for them. They are the most important thing in my life and I have to guide them now.”.
Una also confessed that she found it hard to cope with Ben’s romance with his now wife Jackie Belanoff as the star didn’t expect her own marriage to end with divorce. She said: “Divorce is a tough old thing to go through. You don’t walk down the aisle expecting this to happen. And when it doesn’t work out, it’s devastating. Totally devastating. So that was hard enough, but last summer when he got married again, that was a big shock to me. I was like: ‘Woah, what is this?’ It was something else I had to get my head around. But life goes on, doesn’t it?”.
Una and Ben, who met back in 1998 following a reported date set up by Ben's agent after he saw The Saturdays singer perform, tied the knot in 2012, but in July 2018, it was revealed that the pair split after Una confronted Ben about cheating rumours, the couple's break-up coming just days before they were set to move to the US. Thankfully, the star has not only moved on but is thriving - with plans to record new music and appear at the Mighty Hoopla festival in London this summer. Meanwhile, viewers are watching her and a host of other brave celebrities take on a series of terrifying tasks in Celebrity Bear Hunt on Netflix, the new daredevil reality show with Bear Grylls and host Holly Willoughby.
Una, though she enjoyed the physical challenges the show presented, admits it was very scary at points, “Some things we did were potentially life-threatening. I swam in a crocodile-infested river – but the adrenaline kicks in. I was a competitive swimmer as a kid, so that helped.”. There were other brushes with local wildlife, such as a jaguar prowling near the group’s lodge, picked up by one of the camp cameras. “I go to the toilet at 3am every night, like clockwork, so walking there in the dark was interesting. Luckily, nothing came after me – but that possibility was always there!”.
