Former EastEnders star Joe Swash has opened up on family life with wife Stacey Solomon and their six children as he admits one part of their marriage is ‘bizarre’
Joe Swash is savouring family life with his and his wife Stacey Solomon ’s six children, and says he has one goal – to look back on these years and feel proud. The couple live in a house they’ve called Pickle Cottage in Essex and have children Rex, six, Rose, three, and Belle, two, together.
They also have Joe’s son Harry, 17, and Stacey’s sons Zachary, 17, and Leighton, 13. In this exclusive chat with OK!, the former I’m A Celeb winner, 43, opens up about how losing his own dad at the age of 12 influenced the type of parent he’s become and, as the summer holiday approaches, why he “hungers” to create happy family experiences.
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Hi Joe! Summer holidays are coming – have you got the usual parental excitement and anxiety? Yeah, definitely! We get so excited because we spend so much of the year with the kids going to school, the clubs, me and Stacey working, so we always take a chunk of time off for the summer holidays. It’s our way of reconnecting as a family. Those holidays are really important to us. Do you try hard to coordinate your calendars to make sure you’re both off work? We do because what’s the point in working all year if you can’t get a chunk of time off together? We know once the summer’s gone they’re back to school, another school year older, so we want to make the most of it. Do you have happy memories of your own childhood holidays? We didn’t know how short our time was going to be with our dad, so those are really happy memories. We would get a caravan, hook it up to the car and drive it to a campsite in the South of France for four weeks.
It’s the sort of thing that Stacey and I are trying to provide for our kids. It’s what I hunger for and look back on with really fond memories.
How do you navigate having kids of different ages and keeping everybody happy? The most important thing is making time for them, and their own hobbies and interests. We’re at a point now where Rex loves his tennis, and Rose and Belle are into their dancing, and Zachary loves his cars – so they’re all very different. We try to make sure they know that me and their mum know about their interests and no one is ever overlooked.
Then when they get time together – the older ones and the younger ones – they love it. It’s amazing to see them all having fun, playing in the pool or whatever. We have moments where we’re just like, “Wow, look at this!” It’s amazing. Are you at a point yet where you feel proud of the dad you’ve become? I don’t think so actually. I’m very much still in the midst of the kids growing up and they’ve all got different needs and are at different stages. I’m maybe too much in the moment to step back and think, “Oh, that was good.” I think in a couple of years’ time, once the kids have all sort of found themselves, found their feet a bit more and established themselves a bit more, I’ll be able to look back and think, “Yeah, that was good.”
I’m learning all the time as a parent too and I don’t think there’s a real right or wrong way to do it. So maybe that’s one for the future because I would love to look back at this time and feel proud.
Do any of your kids take after you or Stacey? Are any of them destined for a life on television? Rose and Belle love their singing and dancing, and they go to classes with their cousins. They sort of come as a package and bounce off each other. Rose is very dramatic and loves acting. She’ll get on her pretend phone and have a 35-minute conversation with nobody – it’s lovely to see.
Rex is slightly more reserved but he loves his tennis and his piano lessons, and he’s a brilliant singer. They’ve all got their little talents that they might get from me and Stacey but, honestly, we always say they’ll find their own feet and we’d never push them in one direction. You’ve teamed up with Jammie Dodgers and Nerf for a Super Soaker campaign – Pickle Cottage’s garden seems the perfect place for a water fight! Absolutely, and I’m always encouraging the kids to play in the garden, especially in the summer when the weather’s hot. I’m very happy for them to get out there and soak each other with the Super Soakers. They have actually tried them already and came in very wet, so it’s been great fun to be part of.
Have you taken on Stacey in a Super Soaker water blaster fight yet? Who would win that battle? Oh, 100% me – I would be all over Stacey! She can’t do anything quietly so I’d hear her rustling through the forest or falling through a bush. I would definitely get her first. What do you make of the public interest in your family? You’re all stars! To be honest, I think me and Stacey find it quite bizarre. We don’t really flirt with the showbiz world – we very rarely go to openings and stuff. When me and Stacey are at work, we’re at work – then when we’re at home we just shut the door like any other family.
My dad was a London taxi driver and he’d come home for the evening and he’d shut the door and he wasn’t a London taxi driver any more, he was just my dad. It’s the same for me and Stacey and, although we both love what we do and feel so privileged to do it, when we come home our jobs are irrelevant. Your new Channel 4 show, Meal Deals: Behind The Bargain, is an interesting topic… Well, anything to do with consumers interests me. I knew the meal deal had been around a long time and it’s a part of British culture. Did you know there are 20 million different types of meal deals out there? We didn’t! You must have banked a lot of random facts from some of the shows you’ve done… Yeah, I do like to learn. I didn’t really like learning as a kid in school – I didn’t really have the capabilities for it because of my dyslexia and stuff, so I just had to get through school. So now, yes, I suppose I do like things that pique my interest, like the meal deal journey.
Are you a five-year plan type of person or do you have a go-with-the-flow attitude? I think Stacey is the planner – she does the manifesting. I do watch and take on board how she approaches things but I’m a bit more easy breezy. I’d love to say I have a five-year plan but I sometimes think if I have one and say it, I’m going to jinx it. I love cooking, I love working with the public and doing consumer stuff, so I feel like I’m on the path I want to be on at the moment. Do you find it hard saying no to jobs you’re offered? That’s the scary thing with our jobs – you never know how long you’re going to be working or how long someone’s going to be flavour of the month. It’s really unnatural to say no to stuff because you just don’t know what’s around the corner. But, at the same time, that’s one of the most exciting things about my job, that I just don’t know. I think that’s one of the things I actually love. I could be here today and somewhere completely different tomorrow.
Joe has joined forces with Jammie Dodgers and Nerf to launch a limited-edition Super Soaker available to win on Jammie Dodgers’ Instagram @jammiedodgersofficial. Or see jammiedodgers.co.uk/win
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