Zoe Ball dumps Norman ‘Fatboy Slim’ Cook after 18-year-marriage ‘because of fling with toyboy’
Showbiz couple call time on their relationship after 18 years together
STRICTLY presenter Zoe Ball has dumped her DJ husband Norman Cook after 18 years.
The It Takes Two host, 45, left the house she shared with Norman — aka superstar DJ Fatboy Slim, 53 — their son, 16, and daughter, six.
It is said Zoe has a lover in his twenties and told the shattered DJ she just wanted booze and sex with her new toyboy.
A pal revealed: "Zoe told heartbroken Norman he was boring."
Friends of the couple say teetotal Norman is now fighting to hold the family together after the Zoe left the marriage two weeks ago.
A pal told The Sun on Sunday that Zoe, 45, has become close to a male pal in his twenties — while Norman has rearranged work commitments to care for their 16-year-old son Woody and daughter Nelly May, six.
Yesterday the pair announced “with great sadness” that they were separating after 18 years.
They tweeted: “After many exciting adventures we have come to the end of our rainbow.
“We’re still great friends and will continue to support each other and raise our beautiful children together living next door but one.”
Despite the message’s amicable tone, friends of the couple — who last year bought three houses on the same plush seafront strip in Hove, East Sussex — say Norman, 53, is devastated by her leaving.
One revealed last night: “Zoe told heartbroken Norman that he was boring and said that she just wanted to drink and have sex with a new younger lover.”
The source added: “Zoe packed her bags and left. They have been arguing a lot recently and she decided she’d had enough.
“All the arguments have been over the same issue — Zoe wants to go out and have fun, and Norman would rather stay at home.
“His sobriety was incredibly hard-won and he doesn’t want to compromise it.
“Zoe understands that, but she is in a very different place. She doesn’t want to be sat on the sofa of an evening having a cup of tea.
“Despite being previously teetotal, she loves a party and will get stuck into a night out.”
It is thought trouble has been brewing since August, when the couple — who split briefly in 2003 — travelled to Ibiza where Norman plays. They ended that trip early after a having a big fight.
The pal said: “There was a row about her drinking and it all came out. Zoe is supposed to be dry but she has been going out drinking more and more with girlfriends.
“In their most heated rows she has called him boring and said she wants more from her life.
“And it was after one of those rows that she left. Despite all the fighting, the decision came as a bolt out of the blue for Norman.
“He adores Zoe and would never ever choose to be without her. He is trying to hold it together for the children, but he is distraught.
“And the news that Zoe seems to have been confiding in a much younger male pal about their break-up has added salt to his wounds. This is a very painful time for him.”
Sources said Norman, who quit booze after admitting he was an alcoholic in 2009, struggled to accept Zoe’s decision to start partying again following her own six-year spell off drink.
One said: “It isn’t a lifestyle Norman wants any more. He understands Zoe does, and he doesn’t want to stop her having fun.
“But when she goes to extremes, it’s hard for him to deal with.”
Only in February Zoe said the couple had a “good understanding of each other” — and spoke of their plans to open a “pub come post-office come pet shop” when they eventually retired.
She was this week in rehearsals in London for the Strictly spin off show, while Norman remained at their family home in Brighton.
The couple put on a united front yesterday at Norman’s brother’s wedding in Basingstoke.
The pal said: “Zoe and Norman are still talking, but the effort seems to be very much on his side. At the moment, she is convinced the split will be permanent.
“But they have reunited before, so it isn’t impossible.”
Pair split before over Zoe's other lover
NORMAN and Zoe have split up before — when she confessed to having an affair with his close pal DJ Dan Peppe, above.
Their son Woody was just three at the time in 2003 but they reconciled three months later when Norman forgave her.
Their marriage was rocked again when Zoe snogged boyband member Tay Tay Starhz, 22, at a party last December. Norman and Zoe met in Ibiza in 1997 at the height of Britpop and wed two years later.
The DJ admitted he was an alcoholic in 2009. They both went teetotal and daughter Nelly-May was born the following year.
But famed “ladette” Zoe revealed she was back on the booze in 2014.
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