She may be beautiful, she may have a super-hot husband, successful career and, on the surface, the sort of life that seems pretty darn perfect. But say this to her face and you'll be met with a steely stare. Because life has taught Louise, 35, that she can never take anything for granted. Rather than fate dealing her a fistful of aces, Louise insists she's fought hard for everything she's achieved - her career, her family and her marriage. Although we're shooting her wrestling to control a real-life leopard, we're discovering that Louise is the real powerhouse in the room. Beautiful in a not-trying-too-hard kind of way, she is softly spoken, funny and incredibly warm - chatting away to everyone on the shoot. She gives a laugh when we ask her whether life with Jamie is just as perfect as portrayed in their Thomas Cook travel advert. If you haven't seen it, it features the sun-kissed couple frolicking on an exotic beach looking impossibly gorgeous. In truth, the ad campaign, which reportedly earned them £500,000, divided a nation: half fell further in love with Louise and Jamie, 36; the rest found it fingernails-down-a-blackboard irritating. All of us, though, came away with the impression that life couldn't get any sunnier in the Redknapp relationship. She sighs: "The reality is that 'perfect' doesn't exist. You can't judge anyone else's relationship because no one knows what goes on behind closed doors. We've had some great times, but some pretty tough ones, too. We spent years believing we couldn't have kids, which was absolutely horrendous for both of us. You never know what's going to happen, which is why in reality I would never play the big, perfect celebrity marriage card and then have to face the consequences if anything did go wrong." When we point out that she does play the perfect marriage card in the aforementioned ad, she looks apologetic. "We did the ad because holidays are really important to us. It's more about the perfect holiday than being the perfect couple." She bites her lip. Unlike other high-profile football couples, Louise and Jamie try to steer clear of the showbiz world. They rarely grace awards ceremony red carpets and avoid the A-list nightclub crawl of Boujis and Bungalow 8. Instead, they are content to spend their time out of the spotlight with sons Charley, five, and Beau, 18 months. But it's not just this that sets Louise apart from the other WAGs. Unlike Victoria Beckham, Cheryl Cole and Toni Terry, her 11-year marriage has remained blissfully scandal-free. So what's her secret? "Underneath everything, me and Jamie are mates. We do a hell of a lot together and I would say we're with each other 99 per cent of the time. We laugh a lot and we've grown up together. I was 19 when I met him; he was 21. And I didn't get together with him because he was a footballer - that crazy WAG football world didn't exist back then. I don't worry about Jamie because there's a lot of trust between us." Perhaps it is the imperfections - ones we don't see - that keep them together. "I love Jamie, we're happy but we row like any other couple," Louise laughs. "He drives me mad because he's so messy and I'll often be yelling at him because he makes one cup of tea and turns my lovely kitchen into a bomb site. "I'm a very bad wife in a lot of ways. I'm the world's worst cook. There have been plenty of times he'll sit down and eat a meal and then say: 'That was possibly the worst meal I've ever eaten.' I laugh because it's usually true. Or he'll ask me if I'm making any more salty rice. It's my speciality!" With that she collapses into a fit of giggles. "Honestly, I'm a really bad cook," she says. "We're very traditional at home. Jamie is head of the house, even though I run it. Most of the time he sees me in sweatpants and no make-up doing the school run or just being with the kids, but we have our date nights, too. We'll meet up in a restaurant. I'll put on something cool and a lovely jacket and I'll make sure my hair looks good. I want him to see me and think 'Wow!'" Does her husband make the same effort for her? She laughs again. "Jamie's possibly one of the most unromantic people in the world," she says. "In nearly two decades together I've never come home to flowers and candles. But he compliments me a lot, and when I see him going off with our boys playing golf or football, it makes my heart melt because he's a great dad." Louise has every reason to feel emotional when the subject of family comes up because there was a time when she believed she would never be a mum. "Soon after we were married a doctor told me I probably couldn't have kids because I had severe endometriosis," she says. "I felt like I'd failed, I was totally and utterly shocked. Jamie was amazing, but it was very hard for him. I just didn't know what to do." It took some months before she could face finding out whether she had any options, and she went through laser surgery treatment to remove endometrial cells, before falling pregnant with Charley in 2004, then Beau four years later. Even then it wasn't an easy ride. Just seven weeks after he was born in November 2008, Beau was rushed to hospital with meningitis. Louise looks visibly shaken at the memory. "It was absolutely horrible. I was in such a panic because meningitis is a terrifying condition," she says quietly. "It was just me and Jamie sitting next to Beau in hospital for four days waiting for him to get through it. When you're in that situation it's not about being famous or good-looking, it's about being part of a unit. It's those sort of times when I know I couldn't have done it without Jamie." At our photo shoot, we scrutinise Mrs Redknapp quite closely. She may be a mum-of-two, but she looks remarkably young and fresh-faced. At 5ft 4in and a size 8, she's petite, but still has curves in all the right places. Her thighs are strong and toned and she has an enviable glow to her skin. This is, after all, the woman who was voted Sexiest Female Of The Decade by FHM magazine. So it's hard to understand why she is wracked by body insecurities. But she is. She pronounces her thighs "massive" before admitting that she thinks about having cosmetic surgery "all the time". She pauses. "After I had Beau I was really bothered about my flabby tummy. I went to a surgeon friend of mine and asked him if there was anything he could do for me, but he just told me to go away and stop being silly," she admits. "When Charley's been in bed with us all night and then Beau comes in at 5am, I look in the mirror at my face just pulling my eyes back and working out exactly what could be done. I've had no work yet, but I'm definitely not saying I never will. I'll do my research, but I think if you don't go crazy it can be done well. I'm in reasonable shape, but I think every single woman in the country would want to change something." It was these body issues that prompted Louise to make the ITV1 show The Truth About Size Zero three years ago where she documented the effects of extreme dieting. It put a strain on her marriage and almost made her ill. "When I did that show it did something to my head. I went from a size 8 to a 4 (US size zero) in just 30 days. I got down to 6st and I honestly thought I looked great. I had my skinny jeans hanging off me. Jamie was telling me I looked terrible, but I didn't care because I was really thin. "When I look back at the images I see I looked terrible: gaunt, grey and miserable. But the point of the programme was to see what damage losing that much weight does to your head. We all get sucked in and I wanted to explore that." Thankfully her body is back to its best and Louise can currently be seen gracing ad posters in her smalls as part of Triumph underwear's ad campaign. In truth, Louise is everywhere at the moment. As well as staring back from billboards, she is co-hosting BBC2's hangover TV show, Something For The Weekend, with Tim Lovejoy. It's remarkable to think how she has reinvented herself from her pop-star days. Louise is of course the original WAG. She was in Eternal - one of the first UK girlbands to achieve worldwide success - when Robbie Williams first introduced her to Jamie backstage at a Take That tour in 1993. He proposed four years later and they married in June 1998. By that point, Louise was successful in her own right as a solo artist after leaving Eternal in 1995 at the height of the group's success. It was a gamble that paid off - she has three albums and nine top 10 singles under her belt. Her music career went off the boil in 2003, and she could have been forgiven for turning her back on fame and putting her feet up. Jamie has told her she doesn't need to work. But she enjoys it. And in the last couple of years, Louise has rarely been off our TV screens. She's presented The Clothes Show and The Farmer Wants A Wife, as well as being a judge on BBC1's prime-time Saturday night entertainment programme So You Think You Can Dance. In television terms, she is now becoming a force to be reckoned with. And you might expect the builder's daughter from Lewisham, south London, to shrug and say she doesn't quite know how it happened. But she doesn't. "I think people underestimate how ambitious I am. I'm quite fiery, quite a tiger and I am also a woman who needs to work. "I've always been a grafter. My dad had to work really hard when I was a kid and that rubbed off on me. I love being a mother and being married to Jamie, but my self-confidence comes from working." She feels that all the pieces of the jigsaw are finally in place. "I just feel so lucky to have what we have. People ask me if I want another baby I feel I shouldn't push my luck. I have days when I think: 'If only I had a little girl.' But I'm so happy with work and I think back to being pregnant with Beau, how sick I felt for nine months solid and tell myself I can't go through that all over again." We return to the notion of perfection. But one that isn't quantified by nice holidays or celebrity status - material things that can't compare to family and relationships. "I think it's less about things being perfect than being perfectly happy with what you have." Wise words indeed. Checked the messages on your hubby's phone? Yes. All the time. Are you telling me there are people out there who don't do that? Googled yourself? Yes. I saw some very weird pictures of me in knee pads and a bomber jacket from 1994. Told a friend she looked lovely in an outfit that she looked awful in? No. I always tell mates the truth. Said 'do you know who I am?' I'd rather eat my arm. Pretended to cook something, when it was secretly a packet mix? Yes, on New Year's Eve I bought some Thai green curry from a supermarket and put it in a bowl as we had friends round. But if I'd actually made it no one would have eaten it, believe me! Read something about yourself and thought: 'I wish!' That I really was the sexiest woman in the world.'I'M A TIGER'
Forget the schmaltzy TV ad with her hubby, the cute smile and those doe eyes. Mrs Redknapp’s got bite
So Louise, have you ever...
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