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

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