Joe Swash is known for being a cheeky TV personality but his latest project is showing his more serious side. The former EastEnders star has filmed a documentary for BBC One about the care system.
Joe Swash: Teens In Care saw Joe spend time with young people who are currently living in foster or residential care, and those who have recently left. And he appears to have been inspired by his mum, Kiffy, who has been a foster carer for the last 15 years.
And Joe has recently admitted that seeing his mum be a foster carer and exploring the care system in his latest documentary has inspired him to want to foster himself with his wife Stacey Solomon.
Try MEN Premium for FREE by clicking here for no ads, fun puzzles and brilliant new features
The actor, who played Mickey Miller in BBC One soap EastEnders from 2003 to 2008, recently said that he and Stacey Solomon are currently discussing whether they could one day foster a child who needs to share in the love, stability and family life they have in abundance. "It’s something me and Stacey have talked about and will consider," he shared.
"We’re thinking when our kids get older, and the last ones are at secondary school – maybe then, we’ll try to foster ourselves," Joe, whose beloved dad Ricky died suddenly when he was just 11, added.
As for the rest of Joe's family life, EastEnders fans are likely to remember one of his two sisters who also appeared in EastEnders. Younger sibling Shana appeared alongside him in the show from 2004 to 2006, where they were cast as siblings as she played Demi Miller.
Since EastEnders, Shana starred in theatre productions including Girls Night and Aladdin, and has had appearances in shows such as Doctors. But she has kept a relatively low profile and has since started a new business venture, a pop-up coffee shop in a trailer in north London.
Meanwhile, the 41-year-old has been married to presenter and Loose Women star Stacey for a year this month. The pair married in a stunning ceremony in the garden of their Essex home, dubbed Pickle Cottage due to her nickname for her children, two-and-a-half years after they got engaged.
Joe and Stacey, 35, met when she was crowned 'Queen of the Jungle' in 2010's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here. Joe, who had won the ITV reality series himself in 2008, was on presenting duties on the show's spin-off programme so was one of the first to get to speak to Stacey after she left the jungle.
But their relationship actually didn't blossom until they started dating in 2016. They then began working together on the I’m A Celeb ITV2 spin-off later that year and gained a huge legion of fans. Stacey then revealed that she and Joe were expecting their first child together in 2019 and their son, Rex, was born in May that year.
Joe proposed during a romantic woodland walk on Christmas Eve, 2020 and on October 4 2021, on Stacey's 32nd birthday, she announced that she had given birth to the couple's first daughter, Rose, that same day. Then, the newly married pair gave fans a surprise in December when they shared how they were expecting their third child together and Belle was born in February this year.
But the couple are actually parents to six kids between them. Joe has a son, Harry, 16, from a previous relationship, while Stacey is mum to sons Zachary, 15, and Leighton, 11.
