Matt Hancock has revealed the moment he had the “worst conversation of my life” when he told his wife he had been having an affair. The 44-year-old recalls the “dread” he felt at having to tell his wife of 15 years, Martha Hoyer Millar, about his romantic involvement with aide Gina Coladengelo and that it was about to be exposed by a national newspaper.
The Suffolk West MP, and former Health Secretary during the Covid pandemic, has given the intimate insight into the time that forced him to leave office and his marriage.
In his new book Pandemic Diaries, serialized in the Daily Mail, Mr Hancock discusses the “devastating” implications of his “falling in love” with Miss Coladengelo, a woman he had first met when they were both students at Oxford University.
Miss Coladengelo was there to passionately embrace the MP as he emerged in third place from the most recent “I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!” series.
It is not the first time the public has seen the pair in each other’s arms. On June 26, 2021, the Sun newspaper printed a CCTV image of them hugging and kissing in his offices when Mr. Hancock was serving as Health Secretary.
The clinch broke Covid social distancing guidelines and broke up both their marriages.
The fallout from the story saw Mr Hancock attempt to ride out the media storm before he was eventually forced to resign.
Writing about the moment as a husband he told his wife the Conservative MP has revealed: “Accompanying the joy of falling in love – if you are supposed to be happily married – is the turmoil. You know, with terrible black dread, that sooner or later the relationship must be revealed and everything will come crashing down.”
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With the affair exposed in the most public way possible Mr Hancock, who had the party whip withdrawn for appearing on ITV last month, said he and Miss Coladengelo still wanted to be together.
He recalls the pair knew the “devastating implications” but they “were trying to work out the least painful way of being together.”
Mr Hancock, who has three children, writes: “I also knew I had to tell the children – it was going to be incredibly painful, but I couldn’t hide away from them forever. They deserved to know, too. Having the Health Secretary for a husband or father during a global pandemic has been incredibly tough for the family, and I feel wretched.”
On the day the affair became public knowledge Mr. Hancock left the marital home and moved in with Miss Coladengelo.
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In the days that followed the MP said the public reaction to his rule-breaking affair made his life miserable but that he did find solace in advice from Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whom he described as “thoughtful, considered and as supportive as he could be.” for everyone involved.”
It would be the PM who filmed Mr Hancock’s resignation speech on a mobile phone in the grounds of the official country retreat Chequers.
