Jane McDonald stayed at home until 45 to star's heartbreak, painful split and tragedy
Jane McDonald has been entertaining audiences for decades and Express.co.uk takes an inside look into the singer's life from her former marriage to a heartbreaking loss.
Outside of performing and her work as a presenter Jane McDonald has had her fair share of struggles as the Cruising singer juggled work commitments to a marriage breakdown and also battled grief.
The Wakefield star lived with her mother until she was 45 even after she had found fame on BBC One's The Cruise which she starred on when she was in her early 30s.
She has gone on to present her own TV shows, one of the most popular being the Channel 5 series Holidaying with Jane McDonald. The 61-year-old has also had several hits and in 2009, released her first album under her own record label.
In a BBC Radio 4 interview Jane explained why she lived at home with her mum until she was 45. Due to her busy work schedule she was admittedly away from home for much of the year.
The former Loose Women panellist said: "I wasn’t an only child. I still have a brother and sister, but I was the one who stayed at home until she was 45.
She continued: "I was out working all the time and I was able to pay for the bills and I had my mother at home looking after me. My brother and sister got married and they have been in great relationships all of their lives."
Despite being at home, Jane had been married, first to husband Paul, but very little is known about him or their relationship.
They were only married for one year in 1986 before splitting up and it was another 12 years before Jane remarried.
She met her second husband Henrik Brixen while filming the BBC series The Cruise with him working onboard the ship as a plumbing engineer.
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They tied the knot in 1998 with their wedding featured on the docu-series. After they got married, Henrik took over as Jane's manager to help her career blossom.
However, after just four years, they split up as Henrik felt he was holding Jane back in her career.
She told the Mirror in 2018: "Henrik tried his very very best and he was brilliant at what he did, but he didn’t know the industry.
"We'd come to a point where Henrik had made quite a few enemies and he said, 'If I don’t leave you, you are never going to have a career.'
"And that is why I never talk about Henrik in a bad light at all because he was the one that walked out of the marriage to save my career."
Jane found love again after she rekindled a romance with the former drummer of the 1960s band The Searchers Eddie Rothe in 2008.
Sadly, he was diagnosed with lung cancer and died a few months later in March 2021.
He spent his final days at The Wakefield Hospice who his loved ones thanked in a statement on Twitter at the time.
