Rachel Stevens has admitted that she isolated herself during her marriage to her ex-husband and childhood sweetheart, Alex Bourne, which contributed to their split . The 46-year-old singer first rose to fame in the 2000s with S Club 7 , when she reconnected with Bourne, 47, who was an aspiring actor at the time. The couple got engaged in 2008, and married 18 months later, walking down the aisle to the band’s hit single, “Never Had a Dream Come True”.
Stevens and Bourne had been childhood sweethearts before they rekindled their relationship, and went on to have 2 children. They announced their separation in July 2022, just one month short of their 13-year wedding anniversary . The “Funky Dory” singer, who also appeared on the sixth season of Strictly Come Dancing , explained that she was scared of getting “too close” to Bourne, because of a troubled relationship with her own dad.
“When my parents separated, it really shook my world,” she told Jamie Laing on the Good Company podcast . “It was like the rug had been pulled from beneath my feet; not just the separation but my relationship with my dad. Everything I thought was sacred and real and true to me was kind of pulled away overnight.
” She explained that the event led to her trying to protect herself in relationships. “So from then on, and I think things leading up to that, I learned to build these protections so high that it’s taken me so many years to knock them down,” she explained. “My prote.