The wife of Charli Delaney’s lover tells Rose Fydler that her marriage was happy until the TV star entered the scene.
Tears well in Joanna Kirkpatrick’s sad blue eyes as she remembers what day it is. The Melbourne mother-of-two should be celebrating her eighth wedding anniversary this week, but instead she is nursing a broken heart, which she says is courtesy of ex Hi-5 star Charli Delaney.
“She’s the woman who stole my husband and wrecked my family,” a devastated Joanna reveals in a bombshell that is sure to tarnish the squeaky-clean image of the 30-year-old blonde radio host, so loved by Hi-5’s pint-sized fans during her decade in the group.
Despite gushing about her love life in the media last month, Charli remained tight-lipped about the identity of her new boyfriend. But as Joanna confirms, he is Justin Kirkpatrick, her 40-year-old husband and business partner, and the father of her sons, aged six and eight.
“Thanks to [the end of my marriage], 2010 was the year from hell and the pain is still raw for me,” sighs Joanna, 37, who weighed a mere 43kg by the time she separated from Justin in December.
The elegant Pilates instructor and sports science graduate – who co-owns popular natural therapies company The Liquid Crystals with her husband – had her suspicions for months and finally learned the truth by seeing lewd messages and raunchy photos texted to him by Charli.
“I had fought hard to keep Justin,” says Joanna, who believes they shared a happy marriage until Charli entered their lives. “We had a spiritual connection and a very physical relationship. He was a travelling husband, gone five days a week to teach our product range, but we made love before he went and when he returned, and we were a beautiful family unit. Our business is based on the purity of the love Justin and I have for one another and what we believe in. It’s taken us eight years of making sacrifices and working around the clock to build it into a success.
