Ben Ofoedu referred to his ex fiancée Vanessa Feltz as a ‘chubby blonde’ after she discussed her difficult battle with her weight and body image.
The singer, 52, and the TV personality, 62, split in February last year after 17 years together when she discovered that he had been unfaithful.
Reflecting on their relationship as he appeared on The Shizzio Show on Wednesday, Ben recalled the first time they met and discussed how Vanessa fit ‘his type’.
He explained: ‘I met her through a good friend of mine, Keith Duffy, from Boyzone he did Big Brother with her.
‘We used to go out and he would always just drink at the bar, he was never chatting up girls. He would always find me chatting to a chubby blonde girl at the end of the night.
‘Well that’s what he told me, but I didn’t know that though! You know when you don’t know you are doing it.’
Ben Ofoedu referred to his ex fiancée Vanessa Feltz as a ‘chubby blonde’ after she discussed her difficult battle with her weight and body image
The singer, 52, and the TV personality, 62, split in February last year after 17 years together when she discovered that he had been unfaithful (pictured in 2021)
Ben continued: ‘I was like, “really? Nah, I will just chat to anyone” and he goes, “they’re always chubby and they are always blonde why is that?”
‘So then he goes, “have you met Vanessa?”
‘He introduced me to her and we just got on. We got on really well. We would see each other at various functions.’
In a recent interview Vanessa candidly lifted the lid on the difficulties of her childhood and how she was put on a diet as young as nine years old.
During an appearance on Loose Women she delved into her younger years and explained how they led to her yo-yo dieting, to promote her new book Vanessa Bares All.
The presenter admitted her problems with weight began at the young age when she was put on a very strict diet, and recalled being given just half a grapefruit for dinner.
Elaborating on that time, Vanessa told the panel made up of Charlene White, Brenda Edwards, Judi Love, and Kelle Bryan, ‘I was a little girl and I wasn’t one of those chubby little girls that likes eating cake, I was the skinny kind that’s not very interested in food.
‘Then I did this thing which my parents never really forgave me for, which is called developing. You start to get very tiny bosoms, I was about nine, my mum rushed me off to the specialist to ask “What’s going on with her?”
Reflecting on their relationship as he appeared on The Shizzio Show on Wednesday, Ben recalled the first time they met and discussed how Vanessa fit ‘his type’
In a recent interview Vanessa candidly lifted the lid on the difficulties of her childhood and how she was put on a diet as young as nine years old (pictured in 1995)
The presenter admitted her problems with weight began when she was given just half a grapefruit for dinner
‘They said “Well Mrs. Feltz she’s developing” and my grandma said “That’s ridiculous, she’s only nine,” almost as if I’ done it on purpose, which of course I hadn’t.’
‘And then I think my mum thought that my waist would go in and my hips would come out and I think she panicked I’d be fat. Now, this is the sixties, where everyone looked like twiggy.
‘Also they wanted me to be very marriageable and marriageable meant thin. But I was quite thin, and from that moment she sort of started dieting me.’
Recalling one specific moment from her childhood, Vanessa told of how she would be given different meals to the rest of her family.
The broadcaster recalled: ‘So we’re all having the chicken soup with vermicelli an with lovely dumplings and everything. Vanessa’s having half a grapefruit – and I was nine.
‘I felt as if I was being punished but I didn’t know what I’d done, and I wasn’t big, I was little. Pretty much from that moment my mother became effectively my sort of diet police.
‘Which is very difficult because if every time you raise a fork to your mouth your mother looks horrified what are you supposed to do?
‘You’re really hungry and if anyone gives you, say, an Opal Fruit, you can’t just eat one out of the packet, you’re going to wolf down the lot because you don’t know when you’re going to get the chance again.
‘It makes food a whole big thing. I really don’t think my mum did it on purpose but the net effect has been a very public weight problem.’
Vanessa revealed she threw herself out of a moving taxi after finding out her ex-fiancé Ben Ofoedu was cheating on her while the former couple were on their way to a party in Waterloo.
Vanessa confronted Ben in the car after a family dinner when her daughters, Saskia and Allegra, told their mother an online troll has told them that Ben was cheating (pictured in 2021)
She confronted him in the car after a family dinner, where the presenter’s daughters, Saskia and Allegra, told their mother they had been tipped off by an online troll that Ben was cheating.
Vanessa told The Mirror: ‘He was spluttering, stuttering, expostulating. I didn’t understand because he wasn’t making sense.
‘I couldn’t stand another second. I couldn’t bear it. I opened the door of the moving taxi and jumped.
‘My coat was torn. Blood was seeping from a cut on my arm. I assumed he would stop the cab and follow to see if I’d survived the leap. He didn’t.’
Instead, he reportedly sent her a series of texts meant for the other woman by mistake and then posted snaps of himself out partying online.