Paddy McGuinness took to Instagram to pay tribute to his ex wife Christine on International Women's Day. The Question of Sport and Top Gear presenter had heartfelt words to say about model and reality star Christine, the mother of his three children.
The former Real Housewives of Cheshire star, 34, and TV presenter and funnyman Paddy, 49, announced that they had split last July. The couple married in 2011 and they have a daughter Felicity, six, and nine-year-old twins Leo and Penelope who all have autism.
Their split came months after their BBC documentary Our Family And Autism, which shone a light on the children’s autism diagnosis and showed Christine also being diagnosed with the developmental disorder that affects how people communicate and interact.
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Paddy shared a smiling photo of Christine looking stunning as she walked along in her workout gear. He wrote a message of thanks for being an 'incredible mother' to their children and her work in raising awareness of autism.
"Happy International Women’s Day to all the amazing women out there," he typed. "Thank you @mrscmcguinness for being an incredible mother to our beautiful children and for raising awareness around autism which affects our little family and so many others.
Paddy, from Bolton, who shot to fame on the comedy programmmes That Peter Kay Thing, Phoenix Nights and Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere, added: "Today’s about celebrating all the good women. #internationalwomensday."
The pair each posted statements on Instagram where they opened up about the "difficult decision" to go their separate ways. They wrote: "We hadn't planned on sharing this publicly until we were ready but after the lack of privacy surrounding our life personal life, we feel left with no other option but to clarify. A while ago we took the difficult decision to separate but our main focus as always is to continue loving and supporting our children.
"This was not an easy decision to make but we are moving forward as the best parents we can be for our three beautiful children. We'll always be a loving family, we still have a great relationship and still live happily in our family home together."
Author and autism ambassador Christine is fronting a new BBC One documentary Christine McGuinness: Unmasking My Autism, which sees her uncover the issue of women and girls going undiagnosed and she discusses her marriage to Paddy.
She said: “I didn’t want my family to ever fall apart and that’s why I stayed married. As an autistic woman, I like to stay where I’m comfortable, I like things to stay the same."
“I understand myself better now because that’s where I was comfortable just knowing that it was me, Patrick and the children – but sometimes change has to happen. You just have to deal with it in the best way possible.”
Christine said when she first met Paddy he felt “very safe” and she stayed in that relationship for 15 years. In the documentary she said: “I know I’ve stayed in a place where I was probably unhappy because it was safe and I don’t like change and ultimately I wanted to keep my family together.”
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