Secure in the love of us both, Blakely was really flourishing and the first time he said, ‘Mumma,’ I burst into tears and called everyone in my phonebook to tell them. I then spent the next three hours trying to video him saying it again but he wouldn’t do it!
Soon after that, he started saying, ‘Daddy Jack,’ which was so sweet. But slightly alarmingly, one of his other first words was ‘ball’. He’s already obsessed with football and, when he scores a goal, he pulls his T-shirt over his head and runs around, just like you see players do in matches on TV. If he ever wants to be a footballer, I won’t stop him, of course, but I’ll make sure he’s one with morals!
The financial mess I’d landed in was an utter nightmare to try and unpick. As things spiralled out of control, I had bailiffs knocking at the door to take anything of value off me. I couldn’t pay my water and electricity bills and had to sell everything – even my sofa, which was worth a couple of grand. I sold beds from my spare rooms on eBay, as well as a toaster, clothes and shoes – anything at all.
Towards the end of 2012, I was done with it. Something snapped in my head and I decided that this couldn’t go on. I had to sort myself out.
From somewhere, I found a little of my old fighting spirit and came up with an action plan to get back on my feet. First up, Mum paid for me to see a private doctor, who gave me some anti-depressants. I don’t like taking them but they gave me the boost I needed at such a lousy time in my life.
I also started a hardcore diet and began losing weight, which I knew would enable me to work again and start earning decent money. A few weeks later, as the pounds began dropping off, I got in touch with Nuts magazine, telling them, ‘I’m so sorry, I’ve been ill this year but I’m getting back in shape again now. Do you think we could work together again?’
Fortunately for me, because I was one of their best-selling girls of all time, they agreed to give me a new contract on the proviso that I toned up a bit more. This was exactly the motivation I needed. I was never going to be a skinny little waif again but, thankfully, they seemed to like me with a few more curves than in my heyday!
After such a bleak year, Nuts was like my knight in shining armour. The money I got from the new contract came through just in the nick of time, as my house – which still hadn’t sold, even though I’d slashed the price – was about to be repossessed. It was like someone from heaven had stepped down and said, ‘Here you are. Sorted.’
In stark contrast to the year before, Christmas 2012 was full of positivity and Jack being with us throughout made both me and Blakely very happy. And as January 2013 got underway, I quickly got on with my rescue plan. I had no choice. I had a mountain of debts to clear and moping about wasn’t going to get my bank manager off my case, was it?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A Ghost from the Past
Just as I’d vowed, I worked my arse off throughout 2013 to clear all my bills and pay back the loans I’d run up. We never went out and I was so scrimpy about everything – even down to how much hot water I’d use for Blakely’s nightly bath! I never pictured myself having to watch the pennies so tightly but it was a steep learning curve that taught me a lot.
I also threw everything into making Love Cake Love Me a bigger success. And I was so pleased when it started to take off. Nowadays, it’s doing so well that I’m having to turn orders down. At the moment, I’m operating out of my kitchen but, later this year, I want to open my own little shop in Horbury – and perhaps later start a franchise. The building I’ve got my eye on is so cute: it’s like an old cottage, with gorgeous front windows and an area for a cafe and stock room, with upstairs rooms that would be perfect for the classes I’ve started running. It pisses me off when people send me tweets saying, ‘Get a proper job.’ Little do these people know that I work at least 50 hours a week and so much time and effort goes into designing, baking and decorating.
You might say that starting a cake firm was my vocation in life. Mum used to bake with me twice a week, which was always a treat, and now Blakely loves it too. We have a baking afternoon together every week and he wears a little chef’s outfit, which is so adorable! Perhaps he’s going to be a professional cook in later life because food is already a big passion for him. He loves singing along to One Direction videos on YouTube and, in the song ‘Live While We’re Young’, he always changes the line ‘Hey, girl, I’m waiting on you’ to ‘Hey, girl, I’ve weighed an onion’. It cracks me up.
As well as working flat out with Love Cake Love Me, I was the best-selling Nuts girl of 2013, so their faith in me really paid off for us both. I earned good money all year but didn’t see any of it because it went on paying off every penny I owed. I could have gone under but I’m proud that I refused to. Nobody can ever tell me that I’m talentless or spoiled after I nearly lost everything. In a weird way, I’m quite pleased it all happened like that because I’ve definitely done it the hard way.
Matt went on to get injured again and the last I heard he was playing for Bradford City. He still has to pay me maintenance for Blakely through the CSA – but for me it’s still more about the principle than the amount.
It’s strange though because, no matter what I went through with Matt, I don’t feel angry or bitter any more. Early last year, he had another child with a new partner and said in an interview not long afterwards, ‘I’ve got a six-month-old baby now and you’ve got to think of that.’ That stung badly because there was no mention of the fact that he also had a three-year-old in the form of Blakely. But again, that’s his issue, not mine – and definitely not Blakely’s.
Regardless of everything, I do feel strongly that I’ll never stop Blakely from seeing Matt if that’s the path he wants to take when he’s older. They will always have an unbreakable bond by bloodline, even if they don’t have any relationship. It’s not up to me to dictate how that plays out. On the other hand, if Matt doesn’t want anything to do with him ever again, all I can do is be there for Blakely and answer his questions honestly and sensitively. Of all people, I know exactly how hard it is to have gaping holes in your family history and I will do everything I can to shield my son from the kind of pain and trauma I went through in my younger years.
Once I’d emerged from financial ruin, things settled down between Jack and me. I finally got around to having Blakely’s surname changed by deed poll, so he was now simply ‘Hayes’. I didn’t want my son to have this extra random name if his father had chosen to disappear from his life.
Jack clearly felt more comfortable when that was finalised – it was like the last trace of Matt had been removed from our home for good. As a result, he increased his efforts to support us both, living with us for about half the month and picking up promotional work back in Essex for the remainder. When he was away, he went out far less and was constantly on FaceTime talking to Blakely and me.
While up with us, we’d enjoy fun days out at the seaside or zoo, often with Rachel and her fiancé Jason and their toddler Sebastian – who I’m god-mum to. He and Blakely are only three months apart in age and have become inseparable. They love each other so much and always stick up for each other if any of the older kids start bossing them around in the park or the play-gym we take them to. I can see them being life-long friends – although they have been known to squabble once or twice, including over a chocolate pudding when they were both tiny. Both of them kept screaming ‘Mine!’ repeatedly at the other, louder and louder each time. It went on for about five minutes and Rachel and I were just falling about laughing in the background.
Despite all my efforts to entertain Blakely, I couldn’t help noticing that he sometimes seemed to prefer spending time with Jack than with me! But then I guess every household has its ‘Good Cop’ and ‘Bad Cop’. I’ve always set firm rules and boundaries because I want Blakely to be a grounded person, while Jack’s the one who says, ‘Oh, go on, just one sweet before bed then!’
I won’t pretend that it wasn’t good to have a man about the house too. Jack’s a tr
ained electrician, which comes in very handy, and he’d do lots of painting and decorating too. One good thing about his community service was that it had left him with loads of skills!
As spring came around, we were making plans to move in together full time and I felt like we’d turned a big corner. But then two successive interviews Jack gave in April and May 2013 inadvertently tore us apart all over again.
The first one appeared in OK! magazine, in which he was asked, ‘Has Chanelle replaced Jade in your life?’ Jack replied, ‘No one could replace Jade.’ In retrospect, this was a totally reasonable and innocent answer – how else could he reply? I never, ever set out to replace Jade and he knew that. It would not only have been impossible but wrong and a bit sick of me to try.
Still, I was angry at the magazine for putting Jack in that position and being disrespectful of me and my family. So in the heat of the moment, I took to Twitter (where else?) and blasted, ‘As usual, a certain magazine has made me and my son dispensable. No one could replace her. Of Course. Thanks. #twistingwords.’
I couldn’t leave it there though and added, ‘Actually, fucking sick of living up to a ghost n never ever coming close. What’s been the point in the last three years of my life then?!’ For good measure, I threw in, ‘Nobody will ever replace her. So living with me bringing up Blakely with me means nothing.’
Once I’d cooled down, I regretted posting the tweets and deleted them. But it made things extremely tense between Jack and me. He couldn’t seem to understand my perspective and why it was so hard to hear people constantly compare me to Jade. It sounds like a bit of a cliché but sometimes it felt like there were three people in our relationship.
My tweets caused a real shit storm in the media and even my so-called friends had a go at me. In her column for new! magazine, Chantelle wrote:
I was shocked when I read Chanelle Hayes’ tweet about feeling like she’s ‘living up to a ghost’ after her on-off boyfriend Jack Tweed gave an interview saying no one could replace his late wife Jade Goody.
Jade’s life was so tragically cut short and she left behind two little boys. How could Chanelle be so insensitive, especially now she’s a mother herself?
This left me seeing red. How dare she pipe up – especially as she hadn’t even got on that well with Jade? They once had a massive argument in Funky Buddha nightclub, which several people witnessed. More importantly, Chantelle was supposed to have been my friend, so I couldn’t fathom why she was jumping on the bandwagon. I got that the magazine wanted her comment on it in her column but couldn’t she have said something more balanced and fair?
In a fit of fury, I tweeted her, suggesting she mind her own business and concentrate on looking after her own young daughter, Dolly: ‘Thanks @chantellehought for your opinion. You and Dolly should try walking in mine n Blakely’s shoes before you comment.’
I also wrote, ‘Coming from someone I once classed as a friend, I find the fact she’s discussing me completely out of order.’
Chantelle messaged me privately on Twitter, saying something like, ‘I’m really sorry – I didn’t mean to upset you.’
My reply was along the lines of, ‘Yes, you should be sorry. I’ve never slated you publicly because I care about you. I wouldn’t do that to you.’
She was like, ‘I know, I’m sorry but I would have been crucified if I’d taken your side. Hope you’re OK. We should meet for shopping sometime.’
Once I’d calmed down, I was able to brush it all aside and accept that this is what happens when your life plays out so publicly in the media. I guess I was just upset because I thought we’d only ever say nice things about each other. But being a mum makes you realise that holding grudges is pretty silly and unimportant. We’ve spoken a few times since then and have remained perfectly civil but I’m sad that we’ll probably never be as close as we once were. In some ways, the fact we are both young mums should mean we have more in common than ever but I guess living so far apart makes it difficult.
Anyway, Chantelle’s criticism was extremely tame compared to the other vile abuse I got from complete strangers about my ‘ghost’ comment. Shockingly, I got death threats over it, with one psycho threatening to put a bomb on my doorstep. Another imbecile said they would pour acid on me and people shouted at me in the street things like, ‘You’re a second-rate Jade,’ or, ‘You’re just Jack’s sloppy seconds.’ I didn’t report any of it though because I didn’t want to inflame the situation.
Jack and I somehow limped through that crisis but, the following month, it all kicked off again when he was offered £5,000 to be interviewed on the Jeremy Kyle Show.
‘That’s great,’ I told him, knowing how much he needed the cash.
‘I don’t really want to do it though,’ he said. ‘It’s got a bit of a stigma, hasn’t it?’
I was surprised because it sounded like a no-brainer to me. ‘Well, what’s it about?’
‘Oh, it’s just about my partying and drinking too much. How I’m encouraging other people to live that lifestyle by being in the public eye.’
He’d surely be crazy to turn it down. ‘Jack, you need the money. You should do it. How bad can that be?’
He shrugged and said reluctantly, ‘I guess so.’
Half-joking, I said, ‘Can I come along? I’ve always wanted to be in the audience at Jeremy Kyle.’
‘No way,’ he said defensively. ‘You’re not allowed.’
‘But it’s only in Manchester. I could drive you and then you wouldn’t have to take the train.’
‘No, you can’t come,’ he insisted.
I thought that was a bit odd but, when he got back from filming a few days later, he said it went fine and that Jeremy had been really nice to him. That, too, struck me as strange because, let’s face it, Kyle is known for giving people a hard time, not being pally.
‘Seriously?’ I said. ‘He’s never nice to anyone. How come you got an easy ride?’
‘Oh, because he asked me a few things about Jade,’ he said, a bit dismissively.
The morning it aired, on 15 May, I was in the gym, when I suddenly got a load of tweets on my phone. People were saying things like, ‘OMG, have you seen Jack on ITV?’
I felt sick. What was going on? I came straight home and watched the show, which I’d recorded and, of course, the whole thing was about Jade – not about his drinking or clubbing at all. I couldn’t understand why he’d lied to me.
The programme, titled ‘Jack Tweed: Life After Jade’, focused on his heartbreak of losing her. Watching it was so upsetting, as he struggled to speak and cried throughout. He broke down as he told Jeremy how he’d left Jade’s side during her final hours, which I knew had wracked him with guilt ever since.
It was hard for me to see him in so much pain and, despite trying to watch it as a neutral viewer and detach myself from it, I couldn’t. There was no doubt that Jade’s death was unspeakably tragic. I cried myself when I heard she’d passed away.
Then Jeremy quizzed Jack about his relationship with me, asking if we were still together. ‘On and off,’ said Jack, non-committedly. Jeremy mentioned that we’d both become known for our very public online bust-ups and he replied, ‘She seems to live out most of our arguments on Twitter, yeah.’
Such a fleeting statement might have passed anyone else by but, for me, it was horribly wounding. That was all he could find to say about me in the entire show. There was no reference to being settled as a family with Blakely and me. Nothing. I realise he was there to talk about the loss of Jade but, after nearly three years with me, why couldn’t he also be proud that he’d moved on and got some stability back in his life? I’d been the one who picked him up off the floor and built him back into some kind of decent human being.
I didn’t do it for recognition or gratitude but surely being spoken about with a bit of respect wasn’t too much to expect? The fact that he’d brushed me under the carpet after all I’d done for him made me feel worthless and that Blakely and I were just a cheap
imitation of what he’d had before.
My disappointment led to a ferocious confrontation. ‘I’ve had enough now!’ I screamed. ‘I know what you went through was awful but I want you out of my house because you have zero regard for my feelings.’
He was silent, so I carried on, saying, ‘Why do you care so much about people thinking you’ve moved on? It doesn’t mean you’ve stopped grieving but you should be glad you’ve found someone else to love you.’
Still nothing. ‘I’m not having you treating Blakely like he doesn’t exist,’ I raged. ‘You need to man up and be nice about us in public because you’ve been taking the fucking piss.’
Finally, he spoke, angry too. ‘How selfish are you? She’s died.’
‘I know she has! It’s awful and nobody can ever take that away. But you can’t use that as an excuse for not appreciating who you’re with now.’
He stormed out of the room and I phoned his mum, still in a state. But I got the cold shoulder from her. ‘It’s not about you,’ she said. ‘It was about Jade, who’s dead. Have a bit of respect.’
‘Are you serious?’ I said. ‘I know full well it’s not about me. But all he needed to do was say, “Yeah, we’re happy, things are going well.” I didn’t want to be called the greatest person that ever existed, I just wanted him to acknowledge that he, Blakely and I are a family unit.’
Maybe I was overreacting, I don’t know, but I stuck to my guns and made Jack move out, confirming our split on Twitter:
Chanelle Hayes - Baring My Heart Page 21