TOWIE’s longest-running cast member James ‘Diags’ Bennewith appears to have finally found The One in current girlfriend Jodie Wells, despite a bit of an Elma Pazar-shaped spanner in the works.
Jodie is now a fully-fledged cast member after joining the cast on their trip to Bali earlier this year and has found herself right in the thick of the drama as she tries to move past her feud with Elma.
But while TOWIE viewers know Jodie as Diags’ girlfriend, it turns out she actually first appeared on the show BEFORE she started dating Dan Edgar’s best pal.
Jodie appeared as an extra in the series 31 finale last year, which is actually how she met Diags in the first place.
The pair were seen snogging on a night out after meeting behind the scenes while filming for TOWIE. Not only were they pictured holding hands at a bar, Diags and Jodie were also snapped kissing up against a wall.
Around the same time, Diags left a heart eyes emoji in the comments section of one of Jodie's Instagram pictures before they set sail on a romantic cruise together. Then their romance was confirmed when a teaser trailer showed Diags turning up to an event with new beau Jodie right in front of Elma’s face. Awkward…
Speaking to Dan about his romance with Jodie, Diags explained in the trailer, “The ship has sailed [with Elma]. It’s made me move on with other things.”
Dan then asks, “Am I losing you to Jodie already?” before the teaser cut to a scene of Diags and Jodie snogging at the beach as Dan looked on.
What happened with Diags and Fran Parman?
Diags' split with Fran Parman came as quite the shock four years ago when he suddenly revealed he was single during an episode of TOWIE.
However, Fran later spoke out to reveal the reason for their break-up following an argument over a trip to Ibiza.
“We’d booked Ibiza and we’d just moved into a new flat and he was like, 'look, we can’t fully enjoy ourselves, we’re gonna have to go next year,' and I said, ‘fine, I totally understand that’ and then he just come in like, 'right, I’m going to Ibiza with the boys this weekend'.
“I said, 'it’s not about you going out with your mates. You don’t take me out. I’m just sitting indoors all the time and it’s not fair'. But he just couldn’t see that.
“So I was like, 'I’m going to go to Marbella with Georgia [Harrison]' and he didn’t like that. But I was just like, 'you know what, I’m doing it. I’ve got to be strong and I’m gonna do this'”, she told OK! magazine.
Following her return from Spain, Fran wanted to work on her relationship with Diags but he wasn’t interested in hearing her out.
“I thought, 'three and a half years is a long time, I want to work at this, I love this kid and I don’t want to break up with him'. He just said, 'yeah, we’re not working,' and I was like, ‘what?' and he was like, 'we don’t work anymore' and that was it. I had to pack my stuff and go."
Although they ended their relationship then and there, Fran later revealed she and Diags had continued sleeping together until 2019 when she returned to TOWIE. She later had a rather awkward reunion with her ex, who was clearly gobsmacked when he saw her.
“Ah man Diags looked so awkward when he saw Fran,” tweeted one viewer at the time, while another added, “Diags’ face when Fran walked over… the awkwardness!”
CHECK OUT: TOWIE’s Diags' ex-girlfriends
TOWIE's Diags: who are his ex-girlfriends?
1 of 8Fran Parman
Diags' longest-running relationship was with Fran Parman who he dated for three years. Their romance was documented on TOWIE after she joined the show as his housemate. Fran first dated Diags' best mate Tom Pearce but things soon fizzled out between them, with the housemates then going on to take their relationship to the next level.Fran and Diags split in 2017 but when she returned to TOWIE last year, she revealed to pals Nicole Bass and Clelia Theodorou that they'd carried on sleeping together following the breakdown of their relationship up until 2019. The former couple later came face to face for the first time in a year in scenes which viewers branded "awkward" as Diags struggled to string a sentence together upon seeing his ex.
2 of 8Jodie Charles
Remember when Love Island legend Kady McDermott joined TOWIE alongside then-boyfriend Myles Barnett back in 2018? At the time, she tried to set Diags up with best pal Jodie Charles but her efforts at playing Cupid didn't exactly go to plan when he admitted there was "no chemistry" between them. Added to that, there was huge Essex DRAMZ between Kady and now-axed co-stars Chloe Green and Courtney Meadows when they commented, "the bigger the hoop, the bigger the whore." Ouch. Gatsby and Tommy Mallet later made Diags come clean to Jodie and confess he didn't want to see her again in a rather awkward phone call.
3 of 8Sophie Ernault
Three years after splitting from Fran, Diags' fans thought he'd finally found The One when he went public with Sophie Ernault in August 2020.The pair had already been dating for six months after meeting while volunteering in Uganda for charity The Abode Project but kept their relationship under wraps until she posted a mirror selfie of them with the caption, "We have fun ud83eudd0d."Although everyone had high hopes for their romance, Diags and Sophie just weren't able to make things last and split months later.
4 of 8Demi Sims
Demi Sims found herself in an unexpected love triangle when TOWIE returned to our screens back in September as it came to light that she and Diags had shared a secret smooch on a night out, while Roman Hackett was also interested in her.While Demi didn't end up pursuing a romance with either party, Diags insisted he'll "always be close friends" with the youngest Sims sister.
5 of 8Amy
Demi wasn't Diags' only flame in the latest series of TOWIE as he also dated Amy after meeting her while speed dating. They went on a double date with Roman and Alex but things got a little bit awkward when Amy's secret history with Roman came to light.Things didn't work out for Diags and Amy but he did later admit that they'd also enjoyed dinner and drinks off camera.
6 of 8Angel Bo Stanley
Absolutely Ascot star Angel Bo Stanley appeared in an episode of TOWIE alongside her friend Chloe Brockett as they attended Dan Edgar's Halloween party and it was here that she caught the eye of Diags. However, it doesn't seem like romance blossomed between them as she didn't return to the show for series 30.
7 of 8Elma Pazar
Former Love Islander Elma already knew Diags when she joined TOWIE, admitting that she would "marry him tomorrow" if she could. It was definitely a two way street, with Diags and Elma flirting up a storm for months in a will they?/won't they? that rivalled Friends' Ross and Rachel. But despite sharing a few snogs, their relationship never quite took off and Diags ended up calling things off for good.
8 of 8jodie-and-diags-towie
Despite, his never-ending situationship with Elma, Diags has been dating former TOWIE extra Jodie Wells from Somerset since the summer.
WATCH: 'We're in control of our days' Frankie and Demi Sims on TOWIE vs House of Sims
Ben Pulsford is a Digital Writer for Closer online and heatworld, he's also a London-based drag queen called Beary Poppins who is only a little hurt that TOWIE producers never give him a call to taking part in TOWIE's drag episode. JUST SAYING. When he's not writing about TOWIE, he's manifesting an all TOWIE cast edition of Celebrity Big Brother.