With over 5 million followers on Instagram, fans can’t resist Stacey Solomon’s picture-perfect family life with Joe Swash and their five adorable children – or “Pickles” as she calls them.
But while on the surface their blended family appears to have adapted seamlessly, that’s not always been true, as the couple revealed last week.
Joe, 40, candidly revealed the heartbreak he experienced with his eldest son, Harry, and how that affected his current parenting, while Stacey spoke out about the trials and tribulations of having children from different relationships. Luckily, they are always there to support each other, even through the dark times.
Looking back at his bitter custody battle with ex-partner, Emma Sophocleous, which began less than a year after Harry’s birth in 2007, Joe describes himself as “a mess”. There were times he wouldn’t see his son for months which left him at his “lowest point”.
He admitted he was “not being the dad I wanted to be”, adding, “I think, above everything else, more than acting or TV work, I’d always wanted a family and I thought, ‘I’m never going to have that.’”
He added that Stacey – whose heart broke for him over the situation – came along and “saved him”. Fifteen years on, Harry – nicknamed Hal – is now a teen and Joe says they couldn’t be closer. But he admits he still feels regret over the times they missed, a feeling magnified when he and Stacey welcomed their now three-year-old son Rex.
“We speak every day, he lives close by and spends a lot of time with us – and all the kids get on great. But when Rex was born and I was with him all the time, it made me think of Hal. I missed so much of that daily contact with him as a baby,” Joe, who also welcomed one-year-old Rose with Stacey last year, said in an interview.
And insiders now say that throughout everything, Stacey, who is also mum to sons Zachary, 14, and Leighton, ten, has remained Joe’s biggest champion.
A source tells Closer, “Stacey has often spoken about her mental health battles and Joe wanted to highlight that he’s also suffered and that’s part of what’s connected him and Stacey and made them so strong.
“Whenever one of them is feeling low or struggling with anxiety, the other is not only there to support them, but has first-hand experience of what it’s like to be in that dark place, which gives them a deep understanding of each other.
“Just as Joe has been Stacey’s rock through her difficult times, Stacey has reciprocated that with Joe – being his source of comfort and constant reassurance when he was haunted by those feelings again after Rex was born.
“Stacey has an amazing way of validating Joe’s feelings and making him feel heard.”
The couple first met in 2010 when Stacey, 33, won I’m A Celebrity! while Joe was presenting the spin-off show, but didn’t begin dating until six years later, when Stacey said they had “so much in common”.
She had first son Zachary at 17 with childhood sweetheart Dean Cox, then welcomed Leighton with her ex-fiancé Aaron Barnham in 2012, before splitting two years later.
Stacey told Closer in 2019 that she had misplaced feelings of shame, “I did feel guilty about having babies with different dads. There’s a stigma about having babies with different partners – I’ve definitely felt pressure from people – people I don’t know, and even people I do know.
“I used to really beat myself up about not being able to offer them a ‘normal’ and ‘perfect’ family all under one roof.”
And last week on a parenting podcast, Stacey also spoke out about navigating her blended family of five children. She told comedian Rob Beckett, “The blended family situation has been a rocky road. It’s never been easy.
“We’ve always had to work really hard to make sure that everyone feels secure.”
Now sources say that despite their individual struggles and their full-on careers, Stacey and Joe have leant on each other to make it all work.
The source says, “A huge part of how Stacey and Joe have managed to parent their family so well is that they’ve got so much common ground – both having exes to co-parent with, so they have that mutual understanding of what each other is enduring.
“Not every day is sunshine and flowers. Stacey might get frustrated with one of the boys’ dads and have a disagreement, or Joe might have the same with Harry’s mum, but they’re always there to lift each other up when that happens.”
The besotted couple tied the knot over the summer after six years of dating and regularly give fans a glimpse into their life at ‘Pickle Cottage’.
And the source reveals how proud the couple are of each other and how they’ve made their unique family set-up work.
The source adds, “Stacey and Joe are an incredible team – juggling work, the demands of being in the spotlight, and of course their children and family life – and they’ve managed to find the formula that makes it work.
“Whatever life throws at them, knowing they always have each other makes them confident they can handle whatever the future holds – doing it side by side, hand in hand.”
Get the best celeb stories each week in Closer magazine.