JUST 18 months ago Hayley Roberts was a hard-up shop worker, struggling to get
by on the minimum wage.
Aged 31, she still shared a bedroom with one of her sisters at her parents’
home in a Welsh village and she had been single for six years.
She regularly moaned to workmates that there had to be more to life and very
soon there was.
His name was David Hasselhoff.
Now home for the former assistant in Debenhams’ Merthyr Tydfil store is an LA
mansion and the paparazzi follow her as she jets around the world with her
famous TV star lover.
Speaking last night for the first time about their relationship, Hayley, now
32, said: “He has completely changed my life.
“I couldn’t have dreamt this up. And all because I asked him to pose for a
picture with my sister and me and we ended up falling in love.”
Hayley and her married sister Natasha, 31, were having a drink in a hotel bar
after a night out in Cardiff in February when they saw the former Baywatch
star walking through the lobby.
He was in town to film auditions for Britain’s Got Talent, on which he was a
judge at the time.
Hayley recalled: “Everyone was asking him for pictures, so we did too.
“He smiled and asked if I had a boyfriend. When I said no he said he’d swap a
picture for my number.
“I laughed and gave it to him but didn’t expect anything to come of it.”
The sisters went back to the bar and were about to head home when David, 60,
appeared and asked if he could join them.
She said: “We sat chatting for about an hour and I was blown away by what a
nice guy he was. By the time he left we’d made plans to meet up again the
following evening.”
David and Hayley — who brought along Natasha and her husband John Paul for
support — all went for a meal. She admitted: “We were all nervous around
him, but he was really relaxed and just so down to earth.
“When we dropped him back at his hotel on our way home, he gave me a peck on
the cheek and thanked us for a lovely evening.
“A couple of minutes later I got text saying how he thought I was beautiful
and that he wanted to see me again. It was so sweet. He was such a
gentleman.”
The four met up again the next night so David could say goodbye before heading
off to London.
Hayley recalled: “After he left we said how sorry we were to see him go.
“He was such a warm and genuinely nice man, and now we’d never see him again.”
But about 20 minutes later The Hoff reappeared.
Hayley recalled: “He’d got his driver to turn the car back round.
“He walked up to me, grabbed me by the hand and took me outside where he told
me that he couldn’t leave without telling me that he was falling for me.
“It was so romantic. He said that I was beautiful, that he’d never met anyone
quite like me before and would I please consider seeing him again.
“He told me that he would have always kicked himself if he hadn’t taken a
chance and come back to tell me all this.”
The beauty — who grew up in Glynneath near Merthyr Tydfil with plasterer dad
Steve, 59, mum Lynne, 56, sisters Natasha and Melissa, 33, and brother
Christian, 36 — found herself in turmoil. She explained: “I went into work
the next day and cried.
“Everyone was telling me to go for it and to just see what happened, but I
didn’t think it could work.
“There’s a big age gap and David lives in a totally different world to
anything I’d ever experienced.
“After a couple of sleepless nights I sent him a text saying that I was
really sorry, but that the age difference was just too big. I couldn’t see
him again.
“I spent most of that week in tears, because even though I’d ended it before
anything had actually started I really did like him.”
David texted back a moving message, telling Hayley that age was irrelevant and
that he could not stop thinking about her.
She said: “He said it sounded mad, but he’d never felt this way before. I read
it over and over again and I started to wonder whether I should give him a
chance after all.”
Hayley’s sister and her husband thought she definitely should. “The next
weekend I went over to their house and when I walked in they’d got the theme
tune to Baywatch blaring on the TV and had pictures of him up all over the
room.
“They were chanting, ‘You’ve got to see him’ and kept adding ‘Hoff’ to words.
We were all laughing, and I realised then that I’d been taking it all too
seriously.
“So I sent David a text saying if he still wanted to meet up I’d love to see
him again.
“I had nothing to lose.”
For their first date David flew Hayley to the Swiss Alps where they spent
four days at a spa.
The beauty recalled: “He hired a car and we drove through the snow. It was
beautiful — like something in a movie.
“We really got to know each other and by the time we left I realised that I
really liked him — and that he was right about age not mattering. By then we
were a couple.”
The following month David took Hayley to his LA home in San Fernando Valley
for what was meant to be a visit — though they have barely been apart since.
She admitted of the trip: “I was really scared. I didn’t know what clothes
to take for a start.
“I’ve never had much money to spend on my wardrobe. I knew I’d be meeting his
daughters, and I didn’t know what they would make of me.”
But Hayley need not have worried. She said: “His life in LA is very similar to
my life in Wales. He’s a home bird, like me, and prefers to stay at home
than be out partying.
“At first he took me out to really amazing restaurants, but I didn’t like the
food — it was really fancy compared to what I was used to.
“But there’s a pub near his house that does far simpler food and they make me
eggs, chips and beans.” She has also converted the actor to her own rather
limited cooking style.
She said: “I know how to cook one meal: Potato waffles, egg and beans, which I
sometimes make for David and he says he loves it but I’m not so sure! Poor
David.
“But he says if I’m happy then he’s happy. That’s how sweet he is to me.”
Best of all, Hayley hit it off straight away with David’s daughters —
Taylor Ann, 22, and Hayley, 19, from the second of his two marriages.
She revealed: “They tell me that they can see how happy I make their dad,
which means everything to me. I really care about what they think about me.”
The couple spend much of their time at the beach, or at home watching DVDs and
sunbathing. Hayley revealed: “We do all the things I used to do in Wales
when I wasn’t working. The main difference is that it’s always sunny in LA.
And now I’m sharing my life with someone I’m truly in love with. This is the
real thing, I’m sure of it.”
They also do a lot of travelling, and in the past 12 months Hayley has been
all over America, to Australia, Africa and throughout Europe.
They have spent just three days apart in the past three months.
She added: “He keeps jokingly proposing to me. He did it once on safari in
Africa — he jumped out of the jeep and went down on one knee in front of an
elephant.
“And another time on top of Sydney Harbour Bridge. But so far there’s never
been a ring.
“When he produces one of those I’ll know he really means it. Then I’ll give
him a proper answer.”
Hayley was tight-lipped about what that answer would be. But she admitted: “I
used to moan to my mates that there had to be more to life than working for
less than £6 an hour in a department store.
“But I never imagined for a minute that I would get to find out like this.
“Whatever the future holds, the one thing I do know is that I’ll never lose
sight of just how lucky I am.”