Louise Redknapp has said she considered stepping in front of a bus at the end of her marriage to former England footballer Jamie Redknapp.
The 46-year-old singer and former Strictly Come Dancing star said it was only the thought of leaving her sons Charley, 16, and Beau, 12, that kept her going and made her push the thoughts aside.
In her book You’ve Got This: And Other Things I Wish I Had Known, quoted in the Mail on Sunday, she wrote: “I would be standing in central London, watching the buses whizz past, and I would wonder whether it would be easier for a bus to take me out.
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“All it would take was for me to step out at the wrong moment and it would all be over.”
Asked if suicide was a genuine possibility, she told the newspaper’s You magazine: “I think so, for a split second. I was like ‘I would really like this all to go away.’
“But I’ve got two little men I know need me more than anything. That’s where my selfishness stops – when it comes to them.
“I remember looking at Selfridges and the buses and being like ‘God, I’ve got two people that need me, and they’re the loves of my life, so…’ They’re the only thing that kept me going. Them and my mum.”
She adds: “My really bad time came after the divorce.
“Before that, I just kept a real lid on everything. I felt I had no right to have issues, because I had a wonderful life.
“I felt embarrassed to open up and go ‘Guys, I don’t feel very good right now. I’m really struggling with myself’.”
Redknapp said she decided to leave the marriage in 2017, shortly after performing in the final of Strictly Come Dancing.
She added: “I didn’t want to lose so much of the good feeling.
“Before anyone could stop me, I just ran, as fast as the wind would take me. I never once looked behind, until maybe too late.
“I should have paused for a minute and thought about other people and had just a bit more time to work out why I felt I couldn’t do it any more.”
Asked if she could have saved the marriage, she said: “All I know is, I wish I’d tried.
“I want to say to anybody who is thinking of running ‘Just slow down. Don’t run.’
“Because once you run too fast, you can’t make up the ground you’ve lost.
“Stop, say what you need, say what you think, don’t be afraid to say what’s really going on. You don’t have to be quiet.”
