For decades now, Ant and Dec have been a double act, both on screen and off.
They own matching houses in Chiswick, West London, wear matching suits and watches, and holiday in matching homes in Portugal.
And now Ant McPartlin — estranged from his wife, Lisa Armstrong, and recovering from drink-driving disgrace — has a new love who is the image of Dec Donnelly’s wife.
Like Ali Astall, who is expecting Dec’s baby, Ant’s new love Anne-Marie Corbett is slender and blonde. And, more significantly, like Ali she works for Ant and Dec’s agents at James Grant Group.
Ant and Anne-Marie, both 42, met when she was hired by James Grant to work as his personal assistant.
Awkwardly, it seems that she was first friends with Ant’s wife Lisa, who tweeted bitterly yesterday: ‘And to think she was my friend!’
Ant and Anne-Marie Corbett (pictured together in April) met when she was hired by James Grant to work as his personal assistant
Indeed, Lisa asserted that she was: ‘My friend and our PA who I let into our home.’
She added a row of broken heart emojis and said the first she knew of Ant’s romance was when she read it in the Sunday papers, just like everyone else.
No wonder Lisa feels betrayed. She separated from Ant only in January, and it’s clear she wanted to fix their marriage after he went to rehab last year.
Meanwhile, Lisa and Anne-Marie have obviously been friends for some time. In 2014, Lisa mentioned them watching I’m A Celebrity and drinking wine together, and in 2016 she wrote to her: ‘Happy birthday to my gorgeous friend @ amzie33 congratulations on your 40th!! Hope you’ve been spoilt rotten (well I know you have)!!’
As recently as a year ago, she posted a fun photo of the two of them using a cartoonish filter.
As Lisa’s friend Nicola McLean, a footballer’s wife, observed online yesterday: ‘Really feel for you, worst pain ever.’ Others said Ms Corbett had broken the ‘girl code’ by taking a friend’s man. Ant’s camp, however, deny any such thing has happened.
The timings are as follows. Anne-Marie’s marriage to Scott Corbett, the father of her two children who works for a meat wholesale company, broke up last October.
Ant McPartlin, estranged from his wife, Lisa Armstrong (second from left), has a new love who is the image of Dec Donnelly’s wife Ali Astall (second from right)
In January, Ant announced he was divorcing Lisa — who was so heartbroken she refused to put her name to a joint statement breaking the news.
By March, when Ant crashed his Mini while more than twice over the drink-drive limit, Anne-Marie was a fixture at his side.
She ACCOMPANIED him to a police station the following day, and was among the team from James Grant who supported him at court in May. He was banned from driving for 20 months and fined £86,000 after pleading guilty to drink driving.
Since then the pair have been seen together almost daily, with Ms Corbett helping to walk Ant’s dog, Hurley.
He took her and her two young children shopping at Harrods last month — surely a twist of the knife for Lisa, with whom he had been trying for children since at least 2011. Their problems in this area were a source of pain for them both.
Yesterday, there was no sign of Ms Corbett at the semi-detached home she once shared with her husband in the unlovely South-West London suburb of New Malden. The doorbell had even been disconnected. Neighbours said she had recently taken to driving a top-of-the-range black Mercedes.
Friends of Ant indicate that their romance blossomed in recent weeks, and say the end of Anne-Marie’s marriage had nothing to do with the star.
Ant’s new love Anne-Marie Corbett works for Ant and Dec’s agents at James Grant Group
They had, the friends insisted, been working together on a ‘strictly professional’ basis.
It’s said they have yet to even go out on a proper date, but have instead been enjoying each other’s company in the privacy of the rented house in West London where Ant is now living.
A source told one newspaper: ‘Anne-Marie’s put him back together again. Everyone’s thrilled he’s found someone to love.
‘He’s had a tough time of it, but Anne-Marie has put a smile back on his face again. She has been his rock. They have been living in each other’s pockets, day in, day out.
‘Knowing someone is there for him has brought him back from the brink.
‘It’s very early days, but everyone is hoping he can put the worst year of his life behind him and find happiness again. Both of them deserve it.’
No such joy was evident yesterday for Ant’s estranged wife Lisa, now discussing a divorce from the presenter, who is worth £62 million.
Friends say Lisa, a girl band singer turned make-up artist, devoted her life to Ant, but that he ‘checked out’ of the 12-year marriage some time ago.
In January, Ant announced he was divorcing Lisa (pictured together on their wedding day) — who was so heartbroken she refused to put her name to a joint statement breaking the news
She is now thought to have hired formidable divorce lawyer Raymond Tooth, known as Jaws.
Meanwhile, Ant is moving on decisively with Anne-Marie. A source said: ‘She has worked with him for a while as his PA and things have always been strictly professional. But recently something changed and they started becoming more than just friends. Both of them are single so they decided to try to see whether something could happen.
‘Since he has come out of rehab, Ant can’t really go out socialising, to restaurants or anything like that. It means he has spent an awful lot of time with her and has realised she’s the one for him.’ It’s also said he is now hoping to be well enough to present I’m A Celebrity with Dec later this year.
Dec, whose baby is due in September, would be delighted, having been forced to go solo for the closing stages of Britain’s Got Talent and the final episodes of the duo’s top-rated show, Saturday Night Takeaway.
Ant’s woes began last summer when he went into rehab for painkiller addiction, saying a botched knee operation in 2015 left him in agony.
When he emerged, he didn’t move back in with Lisa, but instead went into a rented house. Over Christmas he spent time in Newcastle with his mum and sister and in January he declared that his marriage was at an end: ‘Ant is very sad to announce that, after 11 years, he is ending his marriage to Lisa McPartlin.’
She supported him unstintingly, keeping her wedding ring on and angrily denying they were ‘estranged’. Shortly before the announcement, Lisa sent a legal warning to newspapers which reported the marriage was over.
A friend said: ‘She hero-worships him and doesn’t want anyone else.’ Ant’s camp says he needed to cut the cord for his health, while one friend told me he felt ‘horribly guilty’ about dumping Lisa. Yet, just a few months later, James Grant Group appears to have provided Ant, its biggest star, with a girlfriend.
Surprising as it may sound to those unfamiliar with showbusiness, matchmaking is often conducted under the James Grant auspices — and sometimes blends romantic attraction with sound business sense.
Back in the early days of the agency, one of its stars, Phillip Schofield, romanced the late Blue Peter presenter Caron Keating, another top talent. She went on to marry Russ Lindsay, one of the founders of the agency.
The other founder, Peter Powell, married its biggest star, Anthea Turner. Meanwhile, it was Russ’s second wife, weathergirl Sally Meen, who introduced her friend Ruth Langsford to Eamonn Holmes.
It led to a happy marriage — and a hugely successful professional relationship, which brought Ruth from regional TV into the big time, and both of them eventually under the wing of James Grant.
More recently, Dec wed his and Ant’s manager, Ali Astall, in 2015. She had worked for them at James Grant for 20-odd years, having started out as a PA.
She co-ordinated every aspect of their lives, from booking their hair appointments to making restaurant reservations. With this pattern in mind, Ant’s new romance says much about the close-knit gang of James Grant staff and talent. ‘It’s the tightest and most successful clique in the business,’ says one insider who knows it well.
Awkwardly, it seems that she was first friends with Ant’s wife Lisa, who tweeted bitterly yesterday: ‘And to think she was my friend!’
In the group are Ant and Dec, This Morning’s Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield, Eamonn Holmes and wife Ruth Langsford, Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan — not to mention Zoe Ball, Tess Daly (both Strictly) and her husband, Vernon Kay.
Then there’s Amanda Holden (Britain’s Got Talent), TV presenters Davina McCall, Gabby Logan, Helen Skelton, Christine Lampard, Julia Bradbury and Clare Balding, as well as Peter Jones (Dragons’ Den), Fearne Cotton (Celebrity Juice), Scarlett Moffatt and Stephen Mulhern (both now working on Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway).
One former member told me this week: ‘We considered each other family, it was as simple as that.’ So perhaps it’s natural that, in a stressful time, Ant has turned to someone within the clique for affection and support.
Socialising with fellow James Grant stars and staff offers a certain amount of protection from unwelcome prying eyes, after all — which may be why, following awards ceremonies, the gang tend to go back to one of their houses rather than attend public parties.
Holidays are often kept within the group, too. Ant and Dec bought houses in a gated holiday complex in Portugal at the same time that Phillip Schofield bought a home in the Algarve a stone’s throw away.
One source told me all three residences were given an interior design make over by Sally Meen, wife of the agency’s co-founder, Russ Lindsay.
Last summer, Holly joined Phil at his home in Portugal, along with fellow James Grant stablemate Peter Jones, while the snow season saw Holly and her family skiing with Jones.
The company even offers business advice to its clients — which, I’m told, is how Ant, Dec and Phillip Schofield came to invest in partnerships organised by the finance firm Ingenious, which is now being investigated over tax-avoidance claims by HMRC.
For decades now, Ant and Dec (pictured) have been a double act, both on screen and off
So why are the James Grant gang so fond of each other’s company? Founded by former Radio One DJ Peter Powell and his friend Russ Lindsay in 1984, their early roster was made up simply of Peter’s friends, including Schofield, who had been his post boy at Radio One.
In 1998, Powell made his biggest signing in Ant and Dec, stars in the making on ITV kids’ show SMTV Live, and promised to look after all aspects of their lives.
Powell said: ‘We go for young people with a good clean image and bags of potential. We spotted ten years ago this would become a big market. Things were moving away from bad girls with tattoos and an attitude problem.’
This mission — to sign up squeaky-clean stars and keep them away from controversy — is still at the heart of James Grant’s operation.
Although Powell and Lindsay are no longer running the business, their work has been continued by a duo dubbed ‘The Worzels’: Darren and Paul Worsley, both from Bolton and, oddly, not related.
Both Ant and Dec consider the pair to be friends. Not everybody likes the way they work, however. Both Piers Morgan and Simon Cowell have left the company, although neither will say why.
Publicity is tightly managed and, in the past, any stars who misbehaved promptly moved on from the agency.
Toby Anstis, a former children’s TV presenter, left James Grant after a reported row over partying in the early 1990s, while Zoe Ball departed in 1999 after marrying notorious party animal DJ Norman Cook, returning some years later when her socialising had calmed.
Clearly, however, James Grant has decided to stand by its biggest star, whose fortunes it has managed since he was little more than a child.
And perhaps this latest love affair will be seen as evidence that he is returning to the fold — although his once spotless reputation is certainly now a thing of the past.