Millie Mackintosh has opened up for the first time about her “toxic” relationship with first husband Pro Green and their subsequent divorce.
From the outset they seemed like an unlikely couple - he an East End rapper with a hard upbringing while she was the Made In Chelsea star and Quality Street heiress with every childhood advantage.
Sparks flew however after the Just Be Good To Green hit-maker - real name Stephen Manderson - asked his agent to get him her number after liking what he saw when she posed in lingerie on a 2011 cover of FHM.
They made their first public appearance as a couple at the 2012 BRIT Awards and then Manderson proposed during a holiday in France just over a year later.
In 2014, they were married at Babington House in Somerset - famous for hosting big celeb bashes.
While things initially seemed good, rumours that they were on the outs eventually began to spread with them pictured having a number of blazing rows in public, including one where Mackintosh was reportedly heard screaming: “I want a divorce! Give me a divorce!”
Despite admitting to trying marriage counselling at the time, it didn’t work. They finally announced that they were going their separate ways after 30 months of marriage in February 2016 with a joint statement which read: "It is with sadness and regret that we confirm our separation."
Since then, both have moved on - she with husband Hugo Taylor, with whom she shares two daughters, and Manderson has a son with Slimane with fiancée Karima McAdams.
Mackintosh, 35 has previously kept quiet about her tumultuous chapter with Manderson, 41, but has finally given an insight into what really went down.
“I think we [Professor Green] both were in our own struggles, and I think we maybe both thought we could fix each other. But we couldn't. And ultimately, we both had our own struggles, and it just magnified it. And it was actually quite toxic,” she told Brogan Garritt-Smith in the latest episode of her Getting There podcast.
They say time is a healer and Mackintosh can attest to that as despite their acrimonious split, she says there’s no longer any “bad blood” between them.
“We're in, like, a nice place now,” she explained. “We both moved on and started families. We've sent each other pictures of our kids. It feels like there's no bad blood.”
During their chat, Mackintosh was asked by Garrit-Smith if there was any advice she would give to her younger self.
The one-time reality TV star - who recently marked being sober for two years and earlier this month released book Bad Drunk, documenting her struggles with alcohol - replied: “I wish I had told myself it's okay to say no. You don't need to be that party girl to try and fit in and that it's okay to be different or to be told you're boring if you don't want to drink.
“I wish I'd been strong enough to say actually I'm okay. (without a drink). But I would always just go along with what everyone else was doing. It took me a long time to finally realise that it wasn't serving me.”
Brogan Garritt-Smith’s Getting There podcast is available to download and stream from Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
