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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Entertainment
Frances Kindon

I'm A Celebrity's Matt Hancock insists he wasn't to blame for cheating on wife

Matt Hancock 's 15-year marriage to osteopath Martha came to a crushing end in June 2021 after scandalous CCTV footage of him kissing his aide was leaked.

The then health minister and current I'm A Celebrity star was reportedly forced to come clean after learning that images of his clinch with uni pal Gina Coladangelo, 45, were set to be published.

At the time of their Whitehall office tryst, Gina was also married to multi-millionaire Oliver Bonas founder, Oliver Truss, with whom she has three kids.

According to The Times, Matt took action when he was warned that the images of his passionate snog with Gina were about to be published.

He reportedly rushed home to break the news of his infidelity to Martha, who apparently had no idea that her husband had been cheating.

Matt Hancock was caught on camera kissing aide Gina Coladangelo (Image: The Sun)
The affair ended his 15-year marriage to wife Martha (Internet Unknown)

He is then said to have woken their youngest child, aged eight, to tell them he was leaving.

Matt and Gina met at Oxford University in the late 1990s when he covered sport at the university's Oxygen FM, while she read the news.

It was also at Oxford that Matt met Martha and the two couples are said to have been so close that Gina and Oliver celebrated Christmas at parties with the Hancocks.

And it was Matt who hired PR guru Gina as a non-executive director at the Department of Health with an annual allowance of £15,000.

Martha - who at the time was suffering from long covid after contracting the illness from her husband - refused to be drawn publicly.

"Martha has behaved in an incredibly dignified way," a source told the Sun on Sunday.

Matt and Gina first met at Oxford University, where Matt also met Martha (NEIL HALL/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

"The poor woman has been publicly humiliated by her husband's behaviour yet she has faced the cameras looking a model of composure.

"She has every reasons to feel aggrieved by what's happened but she has risen above it all.

"She's emerging from this as a woman of real class."

But in a February 2022 interview, Matt - who subsequently stepped down as health minister - was happy to dish on his side of the story, claiming it wasn't his fault that he 'fell in love'.

"I've known Gina for more than half of my life," he told the Diary of a CEO podcast.

Matt reportedly told Martha about the affair the night before the pictures were published (Internet Unknown)

"We spent a lot of time together, ironically, trying to get me to be able to communicate in a more emotionally intelligent way.

"And we fell in love. And that's something that was completely outside of my control."

He did, however, express regret for the pain that caused and the 'very, very, very public nature'.

"Anybody who's been through this knows how difficult it is, how painful it is. Doing that in public is incredibly painful, but I fell in love with someone."

Matt hinted that they'd both planned to separate from their partners in a way that was as 'unpainful' as possible, but said the images caused a 'huge amount of pain'.

Gina was married to Oliver Bonas creator, Oliver Truss (Ms Coladangelo was pictures with her husband helping her pack her car)
Matt and Gina were caught snogging at his Whitehall office (Image: The Sun)

However, he gushed about how 'easy' it was to fall in love with Gina, hailing their continuing relationship as 'joyous'.

"Anybody knows how difficult it is ending a relationship, and we have six children. It's tough. But Gina and I love each other very deeply," he continued.

"Seven, eight months later. It gets a bit easier with time. I don't hold it against anybody because I take responsibility.

"We've been through a lot together. That's the joyous bit. That's the easy bit. There's a lot of very difficult things that I have to deal with. And having fallen in love with Gina, that's the easy bit."

What do you think about Matt Hancock entering I'm A Celebrity? Share your thoughts in the comments section below...

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