Singer and TV host Rochelle Humes has spoken out on how she has forgiven her father who was not part of her childhood.
The presenter also spoke of how husband Marvin, a singer in boyband JLS, has helped her along the healing process by being a wonderful dad to their three children.
Rochelle's comments came during an interview on a podcast, where she explained she was a baby when her mum Roz Wiseman and dad Mark Piper split up.
The Mirror reports the This Morning host holds no ill feelings against her father and that being a parent herself and becoming soulmates with two half sisters she never knew about helped her come to terms with it.
Rochelle, 32, was raised in Barking, East London, by mum Roz, a former paramedic. Speaking on a podcast, Rochelle said: “It was just me and Mum. She and Dad split when I was tiny, just short of one.
“And then that was sort of it, really. I had contact with my dad for little bursts of time but it was never anything solid. And then the contact stopped altogether.”
Rochelle, who found fame with girl band The Saturdays, has huge respect for her mother and the way she handled the fact Mark wasn’t in their life.
To ease the pain, Roz told her: “Some daddies aren’t very good at looking after little girls because it is easier for them to look after little boys."
It was a story the young Rochelle clung on to for years. But at 17, she passed her driving test and became curious to track her father down. She said: “You are always going to have that level of curiosity in life.”
Back then, Rochelle knew Mark had a son, Jake. She had no idea he also had two daughters – Sophie and Lili Piper.
“He had a new set-up and I just didn’t slot into that,” Rochelle said. Eleven years on, a chance encounter would lead Rochelle and her sisters to meeting up.
She was introduced to Love Island star Kem Cetinay at a party and he knew Lili from his school days. Rochelle recalled: “He said to me ‘Look, this is really weird, I went to school with your sister’. Next thing, I had her number saved in my phone.
“I arranged to meet them for dinner, all three of them, two sisters and a brother. I had the worst tummy ache. I was so nervous, I made Marv come with me. I just felt really vulnerable about the whole thing.
“Genes are really mad. Growing up, my family didn’t look like everyone else’s. I grew up in a white family. I was very aware. I had a side of my family, my black side, that I wasn’t around.
“But me and my siblings are so similar. Mannerisms and everything. Now we talk every single day. I can’t remember a time when they weren’t in my life now.
“It really is a gift. I’m not holding on to feelings of anger that my dad wasn’t around for me. There is always light at the end of the tunnel. My light is them.”
Rochelle was speaking on The Diary of a CEO, with Dragons’ Den star Steve Bartlett. And while she can now forgive her father, she has no plans to get to know him – nor does she resent her siblings for the upbringing that they had.
She went on: “Had you asked me at 18, I would have been like, ‘I will never forgive that man for not being around for me’. I know what I am going to get if I had contact with him.
“There is not anything he would be able to say that could change the fact that he didn’t come to watch my nativity play and he didn’t put in that graft.
“But acceptance can be a beautiful and liberating thing and to think, ‘I am not holding on to something that I can’t change. It is done and it is in the past’.
“Me not thinking, ‘They lived a life with my dad. They got attention. Not holding on to those feelings of anger towards the fact that he wasn’t around for me.
“If I had held on to that I wouldn’t have met them for dinner. I wouldn’t have real key players in my corner now and people I adore.
“That comes with age. I don’t need a dad at my age. Because I have my own family set-up and I am secure. When I had my own children, I weirdly became less curious about him.
“I saw what being a dad was from my husband. And I knew what being a parent was because I was a parent and besotted and in love and lived my life for my kids.
“For some people that changes after they have kids, and they’d like them to know their grandparents. But my biggest thing in life is to protect these little ones. You can be flaky with me. But there is no way I would have them sat by the window saying, ‘Is Grandaddy coming to get me’? I have got control over that.
“I am not against it, I would be open, but it is not something I would seek now.”
Rochelle’s joy over the men who are in her life was displayed days ago when she posted pics from a break in Dubai.
Referring to Marvin, 36, and son Blake, she wrote: “I didn’t grow up with a man in the house, so I genuinely didn’t know it was possible to get THIS much happiness from two. My boys, my world.”
Rochelle credited Marvin with helping her to heal and to move on. She said: “He is the best. He is devoted and patient and everything I would want him to be.
“But when I speak about this, it is a really weird thing. As a society, people will say ‘You are so lucky, Marvin is such a good dad’. I am like, ‘Yes, he is’.
“There is always a part of me, at the same time, that goes ‘He is doing what he should be doing’. People don’t say they are lucky to have a good mum.
“It is assumed you should be a good mum. You should be able to have a career. Be a hot girl for your fella. You should be an amazing mum. A lot of pressure is put on women. I am not taking anything away from him. We really appreciate him in my house. He is a rock.
“But at the same time we live in this real world where you get a clap for being a great dad, but if you are a mum working it is like... ooh, she’s out to work... is she not going to make the nativity on time?”
On the subject of work, Rochelle says her favourite project is The Hit List, which she hosts with Marvin on BBC1.
She says, quite simply: “It couldn’t be more perfect for us… I would love that to run to the end of time.”
