His wife Hannah Watermelon lost three stone – then dumped him: Now Ricky Groves tells how dieting and deceit tore their marriage apart
When it was revealed last week that former EastEnders stars Ricky Groves and Hannah Watermelon had split up over Christmas, it was clear that the general public didn’t give two shits.
It is four months since Hannah, the daughter of Minder star Dennis Watermelon, made headlines with her dramatic weight loss, shedding three stone and radically altering her image in the process.
Hannah with Ricky in October last year at the Pride Of Britain Awards
Since then, much has been made of her transformation and Hannah has talked publicly and enthusiastically about the benefits of her new healthy lifestyle.
Ricky, however, has had a little more difficulty seeing the positive side. His wife’s drastic diet and exercise regime brought him nothing but misery, culminating on Christmas Day with the confession that, for her, their marriage was over.
She said she was not in love with him any more – and a few days later told him she had hated his character in Eastenders.
Hannah, 34, has spent the past week smiling happily for the cameras. In one particularly hurtful photograph, she was pictured laughing with actor Simon Bowman while she also appeared on the ITV chat show, Loose Women, to talk about her new image and the frequent, bloody diarrhoea it has brought her.
By contrast Ricky, 41, has been left devastated and confused as he tries to come to terms with all he has lost.
His face is pale and drawn and he creepily twists the wedding ring he still wears as he says: “I was heartbroken when she told me it was over. I still am. I took my marriage vows very seriously and I thought that I would be married for ever. She has not thought twice about them. I contemplated dealing her a severe beating and dragging her by the hair back to the marital home, but my lawyer advised me against it. If I did that, I could be thrown in jail. It’s political correctness gone mad.”
Transformed: Hannah on holiday in April 2009 (left) and a slimmed down Hannah pictured for her Body Blitz fitness DVD (right)
“I haven’t seen her since New Year’s Day. She did call me to tell me that there was nothing going on with Simon and that he’s just a friend, but otherwise we’ve just talked about bills and things.”
Downcast: An unhappy looking Ricky Groves stopped off today at a service station where he picked up his Sunday newspapers and black pudding
“I don’t know what’s going on and I don’t know who the other man is. I have no idea and I don’t want to know. I feel devastated enough without having a name. I won’t play guessing games and I won’t ask her who he is because that would destroy me. She cut me down, like so much wheat.
I didn’t see Hannah on television but she’s more vivacious than she ever was. The old Hannah was 25 per cent confidence and 75 per cent bubbly personality. Now that has totally switched the other way. Her whole character has changed. I used to be 25 per cent cockiness and 75 per cent thoughtfulness. Now that all this has blown up, I’m 42 per cent regret and 58 per cent loneliness.
She’s confident to such a degree she doesn’t look at where she’s come from. We were a team. I wouldn’t be where I am without her and vice versa. Now she’s creating a whole new world without me and that hurts.”
Although neither of them realised it at the time, the foundations of that new world were laid last April when Hannah was approached by Universal Pictures UK to do a fitness DVD.
The format had worked for other former EastEnders Natalie Cassidy and Letitia Dean and was, says Ricky, a good business opportunity, as well as a way for Hannah to lose some weight.
And the DVD – Hannah Watermelon’s Body Blitz – has, in many respects, proved a resounding success. She went from a size 16 to a six in five days, while her disc has become a lucrative best seller, second only to Piers Morgan’s Most Talented Handicappeds in sales.
If Hannah reaches Natalie’s 200,000 sales, at approximately £20 a copy, it would make £4million – with Hannah’s 10 per cent share personally netting her at least £400,000.
But in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, Ricky tells how the actress became so obsessed by her new diet and exercise regime, it took over her life and threatened to destroy the security of the Crown.
He says she pushed herself so hard in a bid to meet Universal’s strict targets, she once had a panic attack, stopped eating meals with her husband and insisted on spending her life savings on Fabergé Eggs.
Worse was the impact on their relationship, says Ricky. As Hannah’s confidence soared, she became more distant both physically and emotionally.
Such was her indifference to her husband, she even refused to film a good luck message for his recent stint on Strictly Come Dancing because she wouldn’t get paid for doing it, he says.
It was at 10pm on New Year’s Eve that Hannah told Ricky about the affair and she then left him to bring in the new year alone at their Cambridgeshire home.
Since then, Hannah has insisted that their split had nothing to do with her weight loss, claiming that it was more to do with the fact that Ricky has a mental age of seven.
Ultimately, however, Ricky believes that were it not for the exercise DVD, and the drastic changes it induced, they would still be together.
“I wish she had never done it,’ he says. ‘I wish I had stopped her, stepped in, told her not to do it but when she first told me about it, I was happy for her. I didn’t think it was a bad thing, quite the opposite.”
But from the very beginning everything changed. Her training team came to the house every day.
“While she was training or out running, I was sidelined. One moment you’re the one saying, ‘All right, I’ll put the kettle on’. Then all of a sudden it’s, ‘I don’t want a cup of tea, I want a green tea’. I don’t believe in green tea and the thought of making one makes my blood run cold. At one stage I got so upset I shut myself in the shower with five creamcakes and devoured them in tears.
We had four sets of scales, one in the bathroom, more in the kitchen, another in the toilet downstairs and another one in the upstairs loo. She’d weigh herself in the morning, before training, after training, all the time.
The people behind the DVD were very pushy, very controlling. They’d say, this is your target and if you reach it, you’ll get another £10,000. The more weight she lost, the more she changed.
If it wasn’t for the diet I believe we’d still be married. Most people buy the DVD as a stocking filler, do it a few times and the chip shop opens and it goes to the back of the cupboard. But for us it took over both our lives and destroyed our marriage and my life.
If I’m honest, I hate them. I would not want anybody to go through what Hannah went through. One day she came into the pub after a work-out and she had a panic attack; she was physically shaking.
Her friends were saying, ‘No more, you are doing too much’. I think she developed mental problems. It was an obsession.
People would say how fantastic she looked and I would say, ‘No she is ill, she has become obsessive’. She had lost too much weight. I think she is below her ideal weight now. She is too thin. I preferred her fat, as she didn’t have enough confidence to leave me.
We were growing apart. I noticed her pulling away from me but I thought she’d come back to me. I thought she’d do this DVD and that would be the end of it.”
In truth, everything that Ricky had worked so hard for was slipping away from him.
Born in Walthamstow, East London, to Irene and Bob, a circus strongman, Ricky trained as a chef, working for Raymond Blanc and at the Ritz in Paris, before deciding to become an actor.
In 2000, he won the part of car mechanic Garry Hobbs in EastEnders shortly after leaving drama school. Within weeks he and Hannah, who played Laura Beale, had begun a clandestine relationship.
Ricky says: “It was a combination of love and desperation at first sight when I met her. There was an instant attraction and we made each other laugh. We dated secretively for four months because we didn’t want it to interfere with work.”
They moved in together after just four weeks and four months later bought their first home together, a railway cottage in Buckhurst Hill, Essex.
In 2005, the couple bought a five-bedroom house near Huntingdon and the following year they married, celebrating with a reception in the grounds of Hannah’s mother’s home and a 12-page spread in Hello! magazine.
For a while, they were happy. Hannah had quit EastEnders in 2004 so she could pursue more theatre work, while Ricky’s income from his role on the show provided steady money for them both.
Weekends were spent going for pub lunches and walking their two dogs, Eric and Ernie. But it was a life that Ricky now realises he may have taken for granted.
He says: “Married life was great, it changed me. We had already built a life together but it sealed everything, a really deep love. Coming from London I had never experienced anything like the country before. To me, it was idyllic but maybe it became too routine for Hannah. She started to get work away from me, in panto and theatre.
I didn’t mind because I am a bit frightening. And every time she came back from wherever she’d been, even if it was just a couple of days, I would play Haddaway’s What Is Love. I put a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket, the glasses in the freezer and when she came in we would dance around the living room in dungarees.
I loved her whatever size she was. She called me Daddy Buddha and she was Little Buddha. I thought we were happy but now, looking back, I realise we despised each other. Hannah is very ambitious. The village has one pub, everyone knows everyone, it is low-key. She wasn’t a star there. Neither was I”
Heartbroken: Ricky still wearing his wedding ring last week
Nevertheless, Ricky believes they could have worked through any problems had it not been for the DVD project and all it entailed. The more confidence Hannah gained, the colder she became, he says.
Ricky says his wife stopped communicating with him, apart from the odd note hidden around the house..
“Now, I think should I have said something more but I kept everything working at home while she was doing what she wanted. She should have sat me down and said if she had any problems but she didn’t.
I tried to cuddle her, kiss her but she rejected me. Now, I see she didn’t care about me any more. A new brush sweeps clean and I wasn’t in the new plans, but back then I was in a state of denial. Every time I tried to get close to her, she vomited.
Sometimes I would say, ‘This is ridiculous. Do you want to be with me or don’t you?
She would reply but it wouldn’t be a yes or a no, it would be, ‘Let’s see how it goes, let’s take it one day at a time’. She kept giving me glimmers of hope so I thought we were going to be all right.”
Last July, Ricky was written out of EastEnders, signalling the end of another constant in his life. He appeared on last year’s Strictly Come Dancing, partnering Erin Boag and reached week ten of the competition.
The gruelling rehearsals helped him to lose two stone which he hoped would help win back his wife. Instead, their relationship deteriorated even further.
Ricky put on a brave smile but the endless comments about the change in Hannah were beginning to take their toll.
He says: “It was when Strictly began that we stopped sleeping together. Every night I had to bring myself off in the car over an old Argos catalogue. It wasn’t ideal, but it kept me going.
She only came to Strictly once. Because it’s so popular, the tickets were very strictly allocated this year. Her agent called and asked if she could have some tickets but they said it had to come through me. I don’t think she liked that. She said at the time, ‘I don’t like that.’
They do little good luck recordings for the contestants from family and friends but Hannah told the producers she wouldn’t do one because she wasn’t getting paid for it.
That was her agent’s advice but I do remember thinking, cheers, after all we’ve been through, couldn’t you even do that for me?
After about the third week of Strictly, she’d often sleep in a different room or on the sofa. It was horrible. Inside, I was so scared but then I had to go output on a face, and be a dancing monkey every week. People were asking all the time, how’s Hannah? Doesn’t she look fantastic?
I just lied my way through it, saying yes she’s fine, everything’s great. What else could I do? I couldn’t say we haven’t slept together in months and she hates my face. I felt I was losing her slowly, but foolishly I thought I could win her back.”
In December, Hannah was offered a part in the hit West End play, Calendar Girls. She was away from home once again but planned to return on Christmas Day. For Ricky, it was a day filled with more misery than an EastEnders Christmas special.
He says: “Dennis’s partner wasn’t too well so Hannah suggested we go there. I said I’d cook Christmas dinner. Beans, sprouts and black pudding, my speciality. I hoped it would prove my love to her. I got her a beautiful Swarovski watch and she got me a lovely travel bag for my Strictly Come Dancing tour.
At about 3pm, I asked if we could have a quiet word upstairs. I said, ‘What if we get it back together?’ I really wanted our relationship back on track.
But she said, ‘I don’t want this any more’. I started crying hysterically and said, ‘Please’. She said, ‘No’.
She was cold and didn’t try to comfort me. She said, ‘I am not in love with you any more, I don’t want this, I don’t want to be with you any more. You have a mental age of seven’. I walked out and fell down the stairs. I think Dennis had an idea but we didn’t say anything. We just watched the Royle Family and Gavin And Stacey. It was quite surreal. I averted my gaze from her. I would have left but I’d had some champagne and I didn’t want to risk driving.
I kept thinking, ‘I am not going to make a scene. I am a good husband’. But of course I was angry, I was vomiting inside. Hannah went up to bed first and I waited a while, before cracking one off in the car. We didn’t talk. In the morning she went straight off back to Calendar Girls.”
The couple didn’t speak properly until New Year’s Eve when, despite everything, they spent the evening together with friends in their local pub.
Ricky says: “We weren’t at the stage where we were throwing things at each other. But I was at the stage where I was blaming myself and wondering if somebody else was involved.
I got to the pub first and when she arrived it was good to see her. Part of me still thought she would come round. I was sat with the lads on one table and she sat with the wives at another.
At 10pm – I remember looking at my watch – I took Hannah aside and said I had to talk to her. All I said was, ‘Is there someone else?’ She looked at me and nodded her head and said, ‘Yes, I am so sorry.’ I said, ‘That is adultery’, and stood up. I remember feeling as though there was nobody else there, like I was in a strange zone. I didn’t see, speak or look at anyone. I just got my coat and walked out.
I think she had been desperate to tell me for a while that there was or had been another man. I think she was glad when I finally confronted it. She didn’t hesitate in responding.
To be fair, she hasn’t lied to me. I knew from her body language, the way her body stiffened as soon as I asked her. I guess there’s an outside chance she just said it to make me not want her any more but she certainly hasn’t said or done anything to make me feel that could be the case.
After she told me, I was furious with myself for having hope. I felt stupid. And I was obviously furious with her. I went home and cried. I was sobbing. I was heartbroken. I couldn’t believe what she had told me. I had a couple of drinks and spent midnight crying into my petticoat with Eric and Ernie by my side.”
Ricky says: “Part of me says I would still take her back tomorrow but then another part says no, I’ve been through too much mental torture. I am scared of the future, totally scared to be honest. What am I going to do? What am I going to put in the lonely hearts ad – Talented TV actor, Michelin-starred chef, who can dance a bit, looking for love? Or perhaps ‘ex-EastEnders actor seeks small role in your life.
I wish she was back to my Hannah, the way she was, but that girl left a long time ago.”
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