Jennifer Ellison seemed to have it all after being picked to co-star in the big-screen version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera – but she hid a secret torment
(Image: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
After finding fame as Emily Shadwick in Channel 4’s controversial soap opera Brookside, Jennifer Ellison looks set to make the leap into true A-list status with a role alongside Gerard Butler and Patrick Wilson in the 2004 Hollywood musical The Phantom of the Opera.
But just as her future seemed secure, Jennifer’s home was the target of a terrifying gun attack. Just as she was moving into the world of Hollywood, she was also entangled in the world of organised crime. Jennifer was in a relationship with Liverpool gangster Tony Richardson, who in 2011 was jailed for eight years over a sword attack.
“It was a volatile relationship and he was connected with this gangland world,’ she revealed. “I was having nails in my letter box, going into hiding and fearing for my life walking down the street. For years I thought bad things like that happened to everyone. It was so traumatic.”
As well as the risk of violence from the mobster’s gangland rivals, there was a constant threat from Richardson himself: “I was terrified to leave,” Jennifer told the Daily Mail, “but then he got caught cheating so it was my get out of jail free card. It meant I wasn’t going to get my face slashed if I left him and I could go without there being any repercussions.’
Jennifer started dating Richardson when she was still only 16. He subjected her to a shocking campaign of abuse, she told Cosmopolitan in 2013: “He’d criticise how I looked, accuse me of flirting with other men and question me all the time about who I’d been with and where I’d been.”
Alongside this vile controlling behaviour, Richardson had a vicious nature: “Once, about six years ago, he smashed me over the head with a beer bottle in front of all my friends,” Jennifer recalled. “My face, eyes, hair and mini dress were covered in blood. I was told Tony ran out of the London club we were in, chased by bouncers.”
For many years, she hid the true scale of Richardson’s violence from her friends and family. Jennifer said: “I can’t tell you how many times I lied to protect him. When he broke my collarbone in 2005, I told doctors I’d fallen, because I thought it was my fault.”
In retrospect, Jennifer says it was a long time before she fully processed the trauma: “I don’t think I dealt with it,” she said, “I think I just locked it away because I had to continue.”
Years after ending the relationship with Richardson, Jennifer still carried the memory of those years. Taking part in 2022’s Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins opened up old wounds, as Jennifer faced her demons. She opened up to former Commando Jason “Foxy” Fox in the show’s famous mirror room, admitting her life with Richardson left her feeling worthless.
She explained at the time: “It was a volatile relationship and he was connected with this other world, this gangland world. For years and years I thought that life was normal and bad things like that happened to everyone because it happened in the world I was in.
“I was having nails in my letter box, going into hiding and fearing for my life walking down the street. That’s not normal. It’s just been one of those things that I kind of buried, just kind of got on with life and got on with everything.
“I look back and think how it was so traumatic. It was so horrific what I was going through. I was such a young girl, I was a baby. I feel like opening up in the mirror room about that has put that part of my life to bed. It was like the best therapy session ever.”
Years after splitting from Richardson, Jennifer’s life is now content and peaceful as she focuses on her family and her dance school.
Jennifer met boxer Rob Tickle in 2008, with the pair tying the knot in Mauritius the following year.
They’ve been happily married ever since, and Jennifer has become a mother to their three sons, Bobby, 12, Harry, seven, and Charlie, six. She is also stepmum to two daughters, Sophie and Chloe, both 24.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: mirror.co.uk
