Ian Wright was just 22 when he met his first wife Debbie and "swept her off her feet".
Then a footballer with Crystal Palace, I'm A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here star Ian grew up down the road from Debbie on estate in south east London.
And a chance meeting following his split from the mother of his eldest three children, Sharon Phillips, led to their first date.
They fell in love hard and fast, with Debbie heralding Ian her "knight in shining armour".
"To me he was perfect – kind, generous and the most devoted husband you could ever ask for," she told the Daily Mail in 2008.
The couple married in a no-expense spared wedding in Mauritius in 1993 and bought an idyllic Surrey mansion in which to raise their son Stacey.
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But just three years later Debbie's world came crashing down when it emerged Ian had been having an affair with a woman he met through his TV work.
"At first I didn't want to believe it, but his agent explained the newspaper had pictures of them together. I felt sick," she said.
"Minutes later Ian himself called me. He was distraught, but admitted all. He told me that they'd been seeing each other for a short time and that she meant nothing to him. She was a fling, he said, a mistake that 'just happened' and it was me he loved. I just listened in shock."
A heartbroken Debbie kicked Ian out of the family home and refused to take his pleading phonecalls, admitting she "despised footballers willing to sacrifice their families for instant sexual gratification."
She eventually took him back for the sake of their son, and daughter Bobbi-Lee came along soon after. But Debbie's heartache was far from over.
"Perhaps naively, I also thought he would never do it again. Sadly, that wasn't the case," she said, revealing how she learned he'd fathered a child with another woman.
This time there was no bouncing back and their divorce was finalised in 2004.
For Ian, he continued to be tormented by his actions, admitting he got caught up in fame and instant gratification.
"It was while I was playing for Arsenal and everything was going so well for me that I got a bit carried away with myself because of all the attention I was getting, the money I was being paid and having so many people all over me," he wrote in his autobiography, A Life In Football, admitting he doesn't see Coco.
"I got caught up in all of that and cheated on first wife, Debbie, which destroyed my marriage. That was a really horrible period.
"If there’s ever been a time in my life I wish I could change, that would be it."
Meanwhile, his failed marriage wasn't the only demon Ian was having to do battle with.
A troubled childhood with an absent father, a bullying step-dad and a heavy drinking mother had left its mark.
On the pitch the hurt masqueraded as anger, with the striker hauled in front of the FA for spitting on Oldham Athletic fans and trashing a referee's changing room.
"I ended up kind of like blacking out and I smashed the referee's room to smithereens," he previously told The Players Tribune.
"[I] threw all their clothes in the bath; threw the television up against the wall. It's like I blacked out with pure rage."
Talking to The Mirror earlier this year, he told how he was desperate for affection from his mother, Nesta.
“I can’t remember ever being hugged. I just felt really, really alone," he said.
"All I thought about was much I hated being in my house, how much I hated my sister and aunt, I hated my step-dad, and how my mum never showed anything."
Determined to be a better father to his own children, he started seeing a counsellor who taught him to "channel" his rage.
Then a chance meeting in a Notting Hill pub changed everything.
There he met his second wife, Nancy Hallam, and knew she was the one from the minute she "mugged him off".
"My missus didn’t know anything about football," Ian recently revealed on I'm A Celeb.
"I met her in a pub in Notting Hill, it was the biggest kind of mugging off in respect of meeting someone. I’m not saying I’m Brad Pitt but she mugged me off so beautifully I knew she was the one."
They married in 2011 and had daughters Lola and Roxanne, and he says their blissful family life has finally taught him the meaning of love and tranquility.
"I didn’t experience an enormous amount of love from my mum when I was a child, so I’ve had to learn what it is, and learn how to be happy and at peace," he said, apologising for how he treated women before.
"I’ve put other people through horrible experiences along the way. If people think that’s selfish, then I’m really sorry," he continued.
"Nancy’s the perfect woman and I can’t stand to be apart from her and our daughters.
“My love for them is unconditional and my upbringing means I have a lot of love to give now.”
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