Celebs Go Dating's Anna Williamson split from boyfriend after heartbreaking conversation

While she’s known for putting famous folk through their paces in the quest for true love on Celebs Go Dating, Anna Williamson isn’t afraid to practise what she preaches when it comes to hard truths and lessons. The presenter and relationship counsellor, 44, is happily married to fitness coach Alex Di Pasquale, and they share two children, but her path to happily-ever-after hasn’t all been smooth sailing.

Anna says she always knew she wanted to become a mum and, in her early thirties, was faced with the prospect of choosing between staying with her then boyfriend who didn’t want children, or walking away from the relationship and “starting again”. “My partner at the time was hesitant about having a family. I knew that from the beginning, and he knew that I really did want a family,” she tells OK! as we sit down for an exclusive catch-up.

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“We had a lot of love for each other and I think we both hoped we’d find equilibrium or a compromise at some point. But then we’d reached a point in our five-year relationship where we needed to have a big conversation.

"I was focused on having a family at some point in the near future, but he had to be really honest and say that wasn’t part of his plan. Neither of us were right or wrong, and it was very painful, but it was also really important that we were both honest. Had we greenlit either way, one of us would’ve been disappointed in life.”

So at 33, working as an agony aunt on This Morning and presenting on Big Brother’s Bit On The Side, Anna found herself single but wanting a baby, and was feeling “desperate”. But, as she now advises many of her clients, she decided to arm herself with knowledge and information rather than make any rash decisions that would come back to bite her years down the line.

“I could easily have fallen into the trap of picking the wrong partner just to tick that box,” she says. “I hear this a lot as a relationship coach. Everyone tends to future pace and think, ‘Well, if I meet someone now, it’ll probably be so many months before I can think about trying for a baby, and then it might take this many months to conceive.’

“For a long time we all thought we had to follow a traditional path, but now we’re realising that there are other ways of doing things, we have different options.”

Anna, who is currently coaching the likes of Kerry Katona and Mark Labbett on the set of E4’s Celebs Go Dating, describes the timeline planning as a form of “mental maths”, which is often based on outdated ideas of fertility and relationships. Rather than give in to the pressure of the maths, she underwent a host of fertility tests to understand exactly where she stood and what her options might be.

She learned about her egg health, hormone levels, options for egg freezing, and projections of decline in her fertility. “The problem is, we don’t talk enough about fertility,” she says. “We don’t know what our options are. Knowledge is power, though, and I didn’t want to panic.

“I didn’t want to find a relationship for the sake of finding a relationship, and I was enjoying my career. But I also knew that having a baby was really important to me. So understanding my fertility health meant I knew all my options and could make decisions based on data, not fear.”

Anna joined Celebs Go Dating in 2019, and has coached stars from Ulrika Jonsson and Pete Wicks to Vanessa Feltz and Ella Morgan. While many of the celebs are there to learn the healthy basics of choosing the right partner, she says the topic of having children is one of the most common she hears in her private therapist work.

Based on her experience, coaching and training, Anna’s message is clear — talk about it early, and talk about it honestly. “I tell lots of clients it’s so, so important to work out what their needs are, versus their wants,” she says. “We get one shot at life, so is becoming a parent a need, or a want?

“If it’s a same-sex couple, it’s important for the woman to know what she wants, and have the information to know what choices she has, and that has to be communicated within the couple.

“I see couples not wanting to have those hard conversations because ‘the rest of our relationship is good’. But those big conversations are actually needed the most when it comes to dictating what your future looks like. It’s about preventing heartbreak early, because if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen.”

Anna says she’s also seen far too many women in particular “fed bull***t” and been “strung along” because, as a couple, they either didn’t delve deep enough into the topic of having kids, or their partner wasn’t fully transparent.

Anna is currently working with assisted reproductive technology provider FutureLife and healthcare firm CooperSurgical on their Let’s Talk Fertility campaign, which tackles what she feels are worrying statistics.

According to research, over a third of UK adults see fertility as an “uncomfortable” topic of conversation, and almost half think fertility education should be taught in schools to address that. One person who is about to shine a very bright spotlight on the subject is 44-year-old reality star Gemma Collins.

The former TOWIE favourite, who also took part in Celebs Go Dating back in 2020, announced recently that she’s making an eight-part documentary titled Gemma Collins: Four Weddings And A Baby, as she plans her wedding to fiancé Rami Hawash and takes the first steps towards “starting a family”.

Anna says she has nothing but respect for Gemma for sharing her experience. “You don’t enter into any sort of fertility treatment lightly,” she says. “There are finances involved, and emotional, physical and psychological challenges, so I think anyone going down that route, regardless of their age, should be respected for it.

“I really celebrate the fact she’s putting a spotlight on fertility at 40, because there’s a lot of stigma around that, and it just isn’t warranted. I genuinely wish her the best of luck.”

After giving birth to her and Alex’s first child, Vincenzo, who’s now eight, Anna went back for another fertility MOT before getting pregnant again with daughter Eleanora, five. With the idea of a third child a possibility, she underwent more tests last year so see where she stood.

“The headlines told me my eggs would probably be dust by now but, actually, I was told I had very good fertility. So if I did want another baby last year, I could’ve looked at fertility treatments, maybe creating an embryo or something. Still, now at 44, it’s not off the cards — but I feel really empowered knowing where I’m at.”

Anna is the official ambassador for the Let’s Talk Fertility campaign in partnership with FutureLife and CooperSurgical

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