Louise Redknapp was a WAG long before the term for footballers’ wives and
girlfriends entered the national conversation. On paper she ticks all the
WAG boxes: married to the former England player Jamie Redknapp, she is
blonde and fit, loves Harvey Nicks, was a lads’ mags’ pin-up and had huge
early success in the iconic girl band Eternal.
Yet Redknapp, 33, is much more than some pale version of Victoria Beckham.
It’s not just that the Redknapps steer clear of the celebrity shenanigans
that are the Beckhams’ lifeblood. Redknapp – now a TV fashion presenter –
achieved a gravitas that Posh can only dream of when she made a documentary
last year that challenged the obsession with size zero (and, intentionally
or not, cocked a bit of a snook at Beckham). “It would have been easy for me
to play the WAG card, but I prefer to stand on my own two feet,” she says.
“I’ve always been out there as Louise, not Jamie Redknapp’s wife, and I
fight for my own thing. I’m much more ambitious than anyone thinks.”
There are more surprises. Redknapp is a devout vegetarian, hates the gym and
prefers to keep fit by boxing. Her life has not always gone smoothly. She
suffers from endometriosis, a womb disorder that can cause infertility (see
box, facing page), and for years thought that she might never have a baby.
When she finally got pregnant with her son Charley (now 3), at the age of
29, she developed pigmentation patches on her face which only faded. She
would love another baby but faces the possibility that endometriosis could
again make it difficult.
In person Redknapp doesn’t even look like a WAG, but then, strictly speaking,
she renounced the title when Jamie retired to become a Sky Sports pundit two
years ago. Instead of the ruthless grooming and fierce French manicure you
might expect, Redknapp looks just like any other young mum, with little
make-up, tousled hair and gold hoop earrings. She has held on to her South
London accent and apologises for not switching off her mobile phone in case
Charley’s school needs to get hold of her.
What’s weird is that although her agent’s office is warm, she huddles in a
beige trench-coat and leopard-print scarf, hiding the curves that got her
voted the world’s sexiest woman. Perhaps she always feels the cold, or could
she be pregnant again? She says she is planning to wait a few years, but
it’s a delicate subject.
She was in denial about her fertility
When Redknapp failed to get pregnant in her mid-twenties she went into denial
and it was more than two years before she was persuaded to seek help. “I put
it to the back of my head and blocked it out; I thought it’s nothing, it
sometimes takes a long time. People tried to talk to me about it, but I
convinced myself that I was having a great life and it wouldn’t be the right
time to have a baby anyway. So I never went through that whole thing of
investigating it or looking for alternative treatments. It was Jamie who
said let’s find out what’s going on here.”
Redknapp had been suffering from bad back pain for about three years but
blamed it on her hectic schedule. Finally a laparoscopy (an internal visual
examination) revealed that the pain was caused by severe endometriosis (see
panel below). She recalls: “It was a big shock hearing someone say it’s
going to be hard for you to have children. It was the biggest wake-up call;
it made me realise how much I wanted to be a mum. At times, I felt terribly
sorry for myself, but I think it was harder for Jamie because he just had to
wait and hope while I had treatment.”
After two sessions of laser surgery, six months apart, in a private London
hospital, the endometriosis was cleared up enough for Redknapp to become
pregnant. She was over the moon; the only downside was the dark pigmentation
that developed on her forehead and cheeks at around six months. Chloasma, a
facial pigmentation commonly known as “the mask of pregnancy”, is caused by
hormonal changes that lead to an increase in melanin in the skin, which
protects against UV light. The patches worsened immediately after Charley’s
birth and Redknapp saw a succession of skin specialists but none was able to
help. Finally, a friend recommended a skin specialist who prescribed a cream
that worked. Even so, the marks took two years to fade and Redknapp is still
a bit self-conscious about her forehead.
Redknapp’s mantra is “I’m just like other women”. And her upbringing in
southeast London was certainly average: her father is a builder, her mother
worked at Gatwick airport and her two younger brothers still live at home.
But life became much less ordinary when the headmistress of her Roman
Catholic primary school, where she sang in the choir, encouraged her to try
for a scholarship to the Italia Conti stage school. Her nonpushy mum “went
white as a sheet with worry” when the letter came offering her the
scholarship.
No doubt her mother was even more alarmed when, at 15, Redknapp was plucked
out of a London club to join the R&B girl band Eternal. They had a
string of hits in the early 1990s, were the first girl band with a
million-selling album, and paved the way for the Spice Girls. In 1995
Redknapp went solo and, as plain Louise, sold more than four million
records. She was introduced to Jamie by Robbie Williams at a Take That gig
when she was 19, and the couple married five years later, in 1998. By then
he was a leading light at Liverpool and a top England player. His father,
the Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp, is also a football legend.
Both she and her husband practise boxing
Incredibly for a woman whose curves still grace underwear shoots, Redknapp
seems genuinely mortified at the prospect of wearing a bikini on her
Caribbean holiday this month. She is no fitness fanatic, but she and Jamie
took up boxing a couple of years ago. They don’t box each other, but spar
with pads and a punch-bag, either with a trainer who comes to their house or
in a nearby boxing ring. She explains: “My fitness has always come from
activities I enjoy, like dancing or walking the dogs. So when Jamie started
boxing because he had a knee injury and couldn’t run, I decided to give it a
go. Boxing is almost like a dance routine because you have to remember
sequences: upper cut, left hook, straight – and that concentration makes the
time go quickly.”
Until she starved herself for the ITV documentary The Truth About Size Zero
last year. Redknapp avoided diets. But after the documentary, in which she
got down to under 7st (44kg), she found it harder to get back to her normal
weight, 8st. “I was scared of putting the weight back on because getting so
thin made me more confident, and I kept trying to monitor the weight gain
all the time. That lasted only about four months and in the end I put every
pound back on. But when my mum comes over she still checks that I’ve eaten
all my dinner!”
“Be the right weight for your size”
Redknapp’s experiment with extreme dieting inspired her to back the current
Boots campaign, which aims to shift the focus away from weight by installing
high-tech machines measure body mass index (BMI) and body fat percentage in
1,000 stores throughout January. She knows from her own experience that
measuring your BMI is much more positive than weighing yourself. “Everyone
is different and what is important is being a healthy weight for your body
size, not looking like some woman you see in a magazine. I know that if I
work out, I weigh more, which is off-putting, whereas these machines show
that my fat percentage is reduced, which is healthier and makes me look
better.”
Redknapp became a vegetarian when she was 17 after watching a documentary
about factory farming, which had worried her from an early age (she is a
“big softie” about animals and has two fat bulldogs). Despite
marrying a meat-eater, she has stuck to her principles: “It’s hard cooking a
bacon sandwich for Jamie, but generally I’m OK. I give Charley some meat
because I think he should make his own choice when he’s older, although I
hope he will follow in my footsteps.”
Charley’s main carer, while Redknapp works on the glossy footballers’ magazine
she publishes with Jamie and presents The Clothes Show, is her
mother, who lives near by. Redknapp would love another baby and clings to
the hope that she will be one of those endometriosis sufferers who have few
problems getting pregnant second time round.
In any case, she is adamant that she won’t prepare for pregnancy with special
diets or exercise: “I think the minute I mentally work myself into a frenzy,
it won’t happen. So I’m just not going to think about it and hope for the
best.”
Louise Redknapp is supporting the Boots Change One Thing Campaign. For more
information, visit www.boots.com/changeonething
. BMI machines are in 1,000 Boots stores around the country until the end
of the month.
Endometriosis
What is it? Endometriosis is a condition that occurs when the cells
normally found in the womb are discovered elsewhere in the body, usually in
the abdomen. These cells behave like normal womb cells, growing and breaking
down during a woman’s monthly cycle, but unlike the cells in the womb, which
are expelled during menstruation, the blood from endometrial cells is
trapped inside the body. Endometriosis is commonly found in the Fallopian
tubes, ovaries, bladder, intestines, vagina and rectum.
What causes it? The cause has not been identified. There may be a
genetic predisposition as endometriosis is more prevalent in some families.
A wordwide study is being conducted by Oxford University to identify the
genes responsible. Other causal theories include “retrograde menstruation”,
in which blood containing womb cells flows into the Fallopian tubes during a
woman’s period.
What are the symptoms? The symptoms vary in intensity and many women do
not notice any. But the most common are painful, heavy or irregular periods;
pain during or after sex; bowel pain and fatigue; and infertility. The
symptoms experienced depend on where the endometriosis is located rather
than the severity of the condition.
What is the treatment? There is no cure and treatments vary. Taking the
combined contraceptive Pill can reduce symptoms in mild cases. Severe cases
can be treated with hormone treatment and/or surgery. Hormones stop
ovulation and menstruation. Surgery uses heat from a laser or electrical
current to remove endometrial cells. Sometimes removal of the womb may be
advised.
For more details, contact Endometriosis UK: 0808 8082227; endo.org.uk
