Love, Lipstick and Lies (6 page)

Apparently he had planned all along to cross-dress that night and had brought his bag of Roxanne tricks with him. At the party he had asked my friend Dawn to do his make up for him. She had agreed, thinking it was all a joke, not realising that for Alex this was serious and he was transforming into Roxanne.
Round and round in my head went the thoughts:
I don’t want this any more. What the fuck am I going to do now?
Once again I felt very alone and very vulnerable. I had married this man, he was in my life, but he had serious issues. Again I begged him to stop and to get help. Again he promised that he would, but he didn’t.

* * *

In September Alex had arranged the biggest fight of his career. It was to be against Tom Watson, a really successful boxing champion. I had arranged the financial side for him, plus a percentage of the ticket sales, which was a bit different from the few hundred pounds he used to get for a fight. It’s amazing what happens when you go out with the Pricey …

I went along to support him and it was so hard for me to watch as Alex got punched, beaten and kicked. I’ve never seen another man able to take the punches and blows that Alex could. It was incredible the way he would pull himself up from the ground and carry on fighting. When he fought he had that same vacant look in his eyes he would get when he was being Roxanne. It was like he was in a different zone, one where he didn’t feel pain.

He fought hard but lost. Afterwards he was in a terrible state, with a battered and bruised face, a split lip and a black eye. But there was no opportunity for me to comfort him because as soon as we got home he went straight upstairs to the bedroom. He had that vacant look in his eyes again and I knew what that meant …

What was going on with him? Was being Roxanne the reward he gave himself for fighting? Did he even
want
to be a fighter? Or was he punishing himself for wanting to cross-dress every time he put up his fists? I now think that his fights were very traumatic for Alex and that they went against his true nature. He fought to prove that he was manly, but he dreaded them too. I think he was being tormented and torn apart by his own conflicting feelings. He desperately needed help, that was certain, and our short-lived marriage was falling apart.

By now I hated everything about him dressing as Roxanne. After first thinking it was something new and adventurous, I had come to view it as seedy, disgusting and vile. His cross-dressing compulsion had completely taken over the Alex I’d believed I knew. And I thought, This is taking me down a road I absolutely don’t want to go down. I told him how I felt, broke down in tears more than once as, again and again, I begged him to stop. But I couldn’t seem to get through to him, and he couldn’t seem to stop.

The worst moment came when I was away on a book signing tour in the autumn and couldn’t get hold of Alex by phone. I had a sickening feeling that I knew exactly why. When I finally got through to him, I said, ‘What are you doing? Are you being Roxanne?’

‘Yes,’ came his reply in that disturbingly quiet voice he spoke in when he was cross-dressing.

‘I’m coming home now. You’ve got to take it all off and stop!’ I shouted.

The thought of going back to find him in that state repelled me. I was frightened by the thought of being alone with him if he was going to be Roxanne, because that meant he would be completely unreachable, in a trance, in his own world. Desperate for some support, I phoned my friends Jane and Derek and asked them to come over with me. I couldn’t do this alone. Thank God, they immediately agreed to. I needed my friends.

When I arrived home there was no sign of Alex downstairs. Oh, God, that meant he was still in the bedroom, which meant he was still being Roxanne. I felt sick with dread as I walked up the stairs. I couldn’t believe that this was happening, that this was what had become of our marriage. Trying to stay strong, I opened the door. The room stank of cigarette smoke, booze and sex.

Inside I was confronted with the most shocking sight. Our bedroom had been turned into a sex dungeon. My husband, dressed up in stockings, suspenders, heels, make up and a wig, had tied a strap-on dildo to my dressing table. I won’t describe exactly what he was doing – I’ll leave it to your imagination. What I will say is that it was the worst thing I have ever seen.

I can hardly tell you how disgusted I felt. It was gross, vile behaviour. It was like he was degrading himself and me. Sex toys were scattered all over the bed. He was so out of it, and so lost he didn’t even look up as I walked in, but carried on with what he was doing. I stormed over to him.

‘Stop doing that!’ I screamed. ‘Get that shit off … now!’

Finally he looked at me, that horrible vacant expression in his eyes, a prisoner in his warped Roxanne world.

‘I’m going downstairs, and when I come back, you’d better have taken all this off!’ I shouted.

But it took more shouting, screaming and pleading from me before he stopped and switched back to being Alex.

I couldn’t stand any more of this. Yet again I begged him to stop the cross-dressing, told him that it was destroying our marriage. I said he had to get help and see a therapist, and he promised he would. I said I would help him and pay for therapy. But nothing made any difference. When he finally went it was no help at all. Alex didn’t change his behaviour in the least.

I was so disturbed by what was going on that I confided in his mum. It was Bonfire Night and I was having a party for friends and family. It was not news to her as she knew all about Alex’s cross-dressing. When I had first met him he was living at home and I’d always felt like a teenager when I went round to his parents’ place. ‘He’s got to stop it!’ I told her. ‘I can’t handle it any more, it’s taking over our marriage.’ Looking back, it seems weird to have had to ask my own mother-in-law to talk to her son about his cross-dressing. But that’s how desperate I was.

She agreed she would say something, and after she had, Alex promised to calm down that side of his life but he just couldn’t. And meanwhile our marriage was breaking down. I didn’t want to be part of his seedy world.
I was feeling stressed out, constantly on edge, constantly dreading that he would switch to being Roxanne.

It was such a shame because I wanted our marriage to work. I’m someone who doesn’t want to give up on anything and will always try my hardest, but the Roxanne thing was something I couldn’t handle. It disturbed me, and it dominated our marriage. Because Alex took it to such an extreme level it destroyed my trust in him. He overstepped all the boundaries. I don’t mind experimenting as a couple, but if you do, it should be something you try jointly. As I said earlier, with Alex it reached a point where he didn’t seem to care if I was there or not; in fact, I think he preferred it when I wasn’t.

I wish that, right at the start, when we’d first met, Alex had told me the extent of his cross-dressing and what a major part of his life it was. I would still probably have been attracted to him, because I did like him a lot, and I would have experimented, maybe once, just because I have that thrill-seeking side to me, but I would also have been very wary. I would never have let him move in with me, and I definitely wouldn’t have married him. The whole cross-dressing scene was not something I wanted to be involved in. I wanted a family life, with more children, and I didn’t want to take on someone with all the problems Alex seemed to have. I couldn’t help wondering where it was going to end. To be fair to him, he was never Roxanne when the kids were in the house – that made it easier to deal with at first, but not for long.

We started arguing more and more. Instead of looking forward to seeing him when I got back from work, I would dread it. On top of the Roxanne thing I felt that Alex had changed from the easy-going guy I had first met. He became very moody. If I had people over he would lie sprawled out on the sofa, not bothering to socialise. It felt a bit as if he was saying, Now I’m married to her, I don’t have to make any effort. I can do what I want. All I can say is that when I first met him he was a real charmer; I thought he was a gentleman, felt protected by him, but I was wrong. So, so, so, so wrong. What was it with me and those types? Dwight had been a charmer, and Alex had been a charmer. Pete hadn’t needed to be a charmer because it was love at first sight, on both sides – or so at least I believe.

Around December 2010 things got so bad that I knew I couldn’t go on like this. We had been married for less than a year, and I had tried my best, but I knew in my heart we had to split. As if that wasn’t enough, at the beginning of the month, that so-called comedian Boyle made his vile comment about Harvey, which deeply upset me. I had the worst Christmas ever. Pete had Junior and Princess that year, and I always hated not having them with me for the holiday. Christmas has been a difficult time for me since my first marriage ended. I always feel sad then because I wish that Pete and I could be friends and celebrate the holiday together with the children.

The atmosphere between Alex and me was awful. I
couldn’t bear to be around him. I didn’t feel that spark for him any more. It felt so fake, opening the presents he’d bought me, because inside I was thinking: I don’t want to be with you.

I told him after Christmas that our marriage was on the rocks and he looked at me with his puppy-dog eyes and got all emotional, saying, ‘No, we can work it out! We’re strong, we can get through this. We’re meant to be together.’

I thought, We’re fucking not, not after everything you’ve put me through! I knew I wanted to be free from him and from the side of his life that he didn’t seem able to control. But because I wanted to feel that I had tried everything, I arranged for us to go to the Maldives at the end of December. Usually I paid for all our holidays, but this time I asked Alex to go halves with me. I thought, No way am I paying for a luxury holiday when I don’t even think I want to be with you anymore!

On previous visits to the Maldives I’ve usually stayed in a luxurious waterside villa with the most incredible view of the ocean. I went there on honeymoon with Pete, and then later on my own with the kids. As I was so unhappy with Alex it didn’t seem right to stay somewhere like that, nor did I want to pay for it. So we booked into a regular villa. It was still lovely but you didn’t get the VIP treatment.

The Maldives is supposed to be a romantic place, but as soon as we arrived I realised that I didn’t have any romantic feelings left towards my husband. It was
a terrible holiday. Alex went training and I had various treatments at the spa. When you’re really into your partner, it’s great being on holiday as you love time alone with them. But I could tell I was definitely off Alex as I couldn’t bear it when it was just the two of us. All I wanted to do was socialise with the other couples we met. Alex complained that he never got to be alone with me, but really I had nothing to say to him. I knew he was never going to be able to give up the cross-dressing and what he wanted to do in the bedroom, and for me that was a deal-breaker. We had no future together.

There was speculation in the press that we were finished. Alex was desperate to prove that we weren’t and wanted to send the press photographs of us together. Not wanting another row, I went along with it and we sent my manager some pictures, which he then released to the press. I don’t think they fooled anyone. It was over.

On New Year’s Eve we went to a party and Alex got drunk. Instead of going back to the villa with him, I let someone else take him back while I carried on partying. I didn’t care any more. When you go somewhere like the Maldives, you see all these other couples, who are so obviously in love, and I remember thinking: I wish that was me … because I wasn’t in love any more. No, I was desperate for an exit from a marriage which had become hell for me.

Back in the UK I told Alex it was over, that I couldn’t be with him. He cried and seemed devastated. I’d like to think that was because he was sad about the marriage breaking up, but I can’t help wondering if it was because he was going to lose a life-style …

I sat down with him and asked if he would write a press statement with me. I even suggested that we should enter into an agreement whereby we both kept the details of our married life together confidential. After what had happened when Pete left me, I wanted us to put up a united front to the press – and I wanted to stop him from selling any stories.

But Alex wouldn’t agree. I gave him a little more time, but then a photograph appeared in the press of him posing for a photograph with my son Junior at the
gym inside a Mixed Martial Arts fighting cage. I was absolutely furious. Alex knew that I had decided to withdraw my children from the public eye, and there he was, bigging up his relationship with my son. I don’t know if he sold the picture (he said he had not), but he certainly posed for it, and he must have known what would happen. That really was the final straw.

On 19 January 2011 I issued a press statement outlining my reasons for ending the marriage. In it I admitted that I had married Alex too quickly and that it had been a mistake. But I also said that Alex had changed from the man I fell in love with, that he had ‘issues’ and I had tried to help him with them, but they had put too much of a strain on our relationship. (I meant Roxanne, of course.) And I said he had become fascinated by life in the media and that his desire to promote himself caused problems within our marriage. I said that I had hoped that we could end our relationship amicably and without a war of words in the press. That Alex had always liked to portray himself as being honourable and I hoped he behaved like that now. But it seemed there was little chance of that in the weeks and months that followed.

Even though I had made it crystal clear that our marriage was over, incredibly Alex refused to move out of the house! Instead he moved into an upstairs bedroom, with all his stuff, and locked the door.

‘I know you’ve been advised by your lawyer to stay here because they’ve told you that you’ll get more money
out of me that way, but you will never get a fucking penny!’ I shouted at him, disgusted by his behaviour.