Denise van Outen has broken her silence on her “devastating” split from her fiancé Eddie Boxshall.
The former couple were together for seven years, before announcing their shock split in January.
In her new book A Bit Of Me: From Basildon To Broadway And Back, Denise revealed she broke up with Eddie after discovering he had been sending flirty messages to other women.
The actress said she found pictures and Instagram messages on her husband-to-be’s iPad.
“Among photos was a screenshot…of a woman’s breasts – and they definitely weren’t mine!” she wrote. “Also, there was a flirty text exchange between Eddie and this woman, which, of course, set off alarm bells.”
Denise claimed she discovered selfies of Eddie with another woman in a bar on a day he had told her he was in London for business.
The 47-year-old also allegedly found “phone sex” messages between Eddie and a third woman.
Denise wrote: “To me, sexual chats and continued communication over a long period of time amount to cheating.”
“Especially when it’s done from a home I’d strived to build for us as a family. A home that Eddie found and I bought for us. A home we’d only just moved into when it all started. It was disrespectful and devastatingly hurtful.”
The West End star said she confronted her fiancé about the women, but he denied doing anything wrong, and she told him to leave.
“The thing I battled with most was that it wasn’t just one person, one mistake or drunken night. This was something that had gone on for more than three years. I felt betrayed,” she admitted.
Denise said she “cried her heart out” to her mother after the split, adding: “I was in pain and shock. I’d thought we had the perfect life. Any relationship has to be built on trust and once that’s gone, there’s no way forward.”
“If I hadn’t found those pictures, I’d be planning a wedding right now. Instead, I’ve simply got to move on.”
Denise and Eddie shared a home in Essex, where they lived with Denise’s 11-year-old daughter Besty, who she had with her ex-husband Lee Mead.
Eddie is also father to son Jordan, 25, and daughter Leah, 22, from a previous relationship.
