As she prepares to join the line-up next season of Dancing on Ice, Hannah Spearritt joins HELLO! for an exclusive interview and photoshoot and says she’s looking forward to Christmas and a fresh start in 2024 after a heartbreaking year in which she suffered a debilitating health condition and a devastating bereavement.
Joining us at Ballingdon Hall, a luxury retreat in Suffolk, with her fiancé Adam Thomas and their two little girls Tora, three, and Taya, who turns five on 20 December, the S Club 7 star says: “This will be the first time both girls are fully aware of Christmas and they’re super excited and bouncing off one another. They’re at an age where they’re taking it all in and it’s so nice for us, as adults, to see Christmas through their eyes and experience the magic again.”
The festive season will be a chance for Hannah, 42, and Adam, 43, to take stock and enjoy some much-needed family time. In April, Hannah’s first love and S Club 7 bandmate Paul Cattermole, 46, died suddenly from heart complications as the band was planning a reunion tour to mark its 25th anniversary – their first time on the road in eight years. Hannah and Paul had known each other since they were teenagers and were in a relationship for five years, and the heartbroken star pulled out of the tour, which went ahead in October with the remaining five members Rachel Stevens, Tina Barrett, Jon Lee, Bradley McIntosh and Jo O’Meara rebranding simply as S Club.
“It's been a tough and challenging year, and things happened which were quite traumatic,” says Hannah, who recently published her autobiography, Facing the Music. “It wasn’t easy to look back at my life while I was grieving, and I wondered if it was right to carry on writing. But I also look back on the early days with fondness. I was so young, and it was an absolute blast.”
Hannah, who has also starred in EastEnders and sci-fi drama Primeval, says she couldn’t have signed up for Dancing on Ice, which returns to our screens next month, had it not been for revolutionary treatment she has received from Harley Street doctor Aamer Khan, an expert in regenerative medicine, after she began to suffer from chronic fatigue, brain fog and vertigo - symptoms she first experienced after having breast implants in 2013. She and Adam believe her auto-immune condition may have been triggered by two miscarriages in 2022, as well as stress, and Dr Khan used serum derived from Hannah’s own blood to help stabilise her condition and repair damaged tissues and organs.
“Dr Khan has been fantastic,” says Hannah. “I don’t think I realised how much I’d deteriorated because it happens so gradually. I had no energy and couldn’t even get on a train or cook dinner. That affected my mental health too, because I’ve always been a physical and sporty person. It’s only when you get better and can do the things you love again that you realise how bad things were.”
As S Club go back on the road next year, Hannah and Adam hope to take their daughters to Costa Rica, where they are looking at land to build a community where they would live alongside other families for part of the year, splitting their time between the Central American country and the UK.
“We want to live a simple, happy life and spend as much time with the girls as possible,” she says. “The most important thing for me right now is just being present for them in between my TV work.”
Meanwhile, she has been rehearsing for Dancing on Ice with her professional partner as she prepares to compete against the likes of boxer Ricky Hatton, presenter Adele Roberts and Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards.
“I had never skated before and used to hold onto the side and hope for the best, then fall over, so it’s nice to be making progress,” she says. “Everyone's sort of getting into the groove and supporting each other. I’m really excited about being able to get onto the ice with the girls.”
Location shoot: Ballingdon Hall https://ballingdonhall.co.uk
Hannah's treatment: Harley St Skin, Dr Aamer Khan & Lesley Reynolds https://www.harleystreetskinclinic.com/en/
Flowers: Cissy Sleigh @_wildstems_www.wild-stems.com
Animals: Performing Pets www.performingpets.co.uk @performingpets
For the full interview see this weeks Hello! Magazine
