Latest news with #CherylThomasgood
The Sun
22-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
My mum abandoned us for toyboy Masai warrior on holiday in Kenya – it destroyed my life & even teachers laughed at me
A SON whose mum left her family to marry a Masai warrior she met on holiday revealed it destroyed his childhood. Cheryl Thomasgood, then 34, jetted away from her second husband and three children to marry Daniel Lekimencho weeks after meeting him in Kenya. 6 6 The couple first lay eyes on each other at the Bamburi Beach Hotel in Mombasa. Cheryl quickly traded in her suburban life on the Isle of Wight and relocated there with the 6ft 2-inch-tall Kenyan warrior - who was ten years her junior. Her son Stevie Liddington, now 43, has broken his silence on the ordeal in light of his mother's comments earlier this month. She explained how she felt she was used as a "meal ticket" by the Masai warrior and expressed her regret. But Stevie, who was 11 when Cheryl left, told the Mail he is "ashamed to call her my mother" and "deeply disgusted". "My mother did not just abandon her family in the 1990s – she ruined our childhoods," he said. "She left behind three children, including me, and never looked back in any meaningful or supportive way. "She was never the kind of mother who cared about her children's emotional well-being, and even now, decades later, she continues to show who she truly is by dragging this all up again without a thought for the people it hurts." Stevie has relocated with his wife and children to Seoul, in South Korea, and hasn't spoken to Cheryl in 10 years. He told how his brother moved to Canada, and similarly has little contact with their mum. In harrowing tales, Stevie revealed his childhood had been traumatic before Daniel arrived on the scene. His father, Robert Liddington, had left the home when he was five-years-old, which saw Cheryl spiral into a mental breakdown. Stevie and his younger brother were temporarily placed in foster care after they "saw things no child should ever witness" - including Cheryl holding a knife to her own neck. He recalled Cheryl's second husband, Mike Mason, stepping up and giving the family stability. 6 6 But their happiness was shattered beyond repair with "one phone call" from Kenya when Cheryl said she was never coming home. Stevie's trauma only deepened after the case sparked a media frenzy, which he claimed his mother loved to fuel. He refuted her expressions of regret and said she'd never taken accountability properly. The web designer claimed her comments were filled with lies, including the impression Daniel was loved by the kids. "We were not 'taken' with him. He was a stranger in our home who could barely speak English," he said. "Their relationship was violent, chaotic. I remember physical fights between the two." Cheryl and Daniel had welcomed a daughter together, Misti, in 1998. Stevie said he was often left to look after his half-sister, when Cheryl would go missing for days. "I'd walk the parks for hours with Misti in her buggy, praying to whoever was listening that my mum wasn't dead," he added. Stevie revealed Misti and Cheryl are still in contact with each other and there is no bad blood. His brother, who relocated to Canada, also has an on-and-off relationship with Cheryl. But Stevie is insistent he must keep the door closed with "narcissistic" Cheryl - who he slammed should "never have been a mother". CHERYL'S REGRET Cheryl and her new partner made headlines across the globe with people left gobsmacked at her decision to abandon the comfortable middle-class life for a new home and partner in rural Kenya. She traded it in to help the warrior cook, clean and hunt, sleeping on goatskin and surviving on a diet of cow's blood and cabbage in a mud hut. But the bizarre couple eventually to leave Kenya behind returned to the Isle of Wight in 1995. They tied the knot on Valentine's Day, both wearing traditional Masai clothing. But more than three decades later, Cheryl has broken her silence after the marriage fell apart - when she claimed Daniel became obsessed with wealth. She described feeling used as a "meal ticket" in an emotional interview with the MailOnline. "I made a huge mistake, it was very wrong of me, and I have a lot of regrets, especially about how it damaged my children," she said. Cheryl split with Daniel in 1999 just four years after they were married and one year after their daughter was born. Now, 65-year-old Cheryl lives alone in a seaside town in Somerset where she is well known among the local community. She has kept her controversial past hidden from the community with none of her friends aware of the bizarre relationship she once had with the Masai warrior. MARRIAGE BREAKDOWN Cheryl has now told how shortly after arriving in the UK Daniel became obsessed with material things and money. She detailed how Daniel quickly became moody and miserable over the couples lot in life, wanting more money and more possessions, changed by life in the UK. Cheryl recalled the only time Daniel being happy was when the Kenyan warrior was jumping around in the garden doing his traditional Masai dance. She added: "He would say that he was getting ready for battle and wanted to jump as high as an elephant. The kids loved it, but it got on my nerves after a while." Trying to pinpoint what went wrong in the peculiar relationship Cheryl blamed a slew of drastic cultural differences between her and her husband. She reportedly felt that adjusting to life in the UK was too tough for Daniel and his struggles assimilating, combined with the pressure on the pair to make their relationship work, led to the eventual end of their marriage. Cheryl admitted that she suffered sexual abuse as a young girl and spoke about the harrowing difficulties she faced growing up in a dysfunctional London household with alcoholic parents, she was reportedly contemplating suicide at the time she met Daniel. She revealed how she was urged to go on her Kenyan holiday by a friend who was in the same church choir as her, the pair went on the holiday that would change her life forever together. When Cheryl went to Kenya she was at a low point in her life she said, suffering with childhood trauma and stuck in an unhappy marriage to her second husband Mike. She had seen Daniel was an answer to her problems, believing he could help her heal and find peace through spirituality. Cheryl now admits that her love affair with the Masai warrior was just an escape from her problems and not an answer to them. MOVING ON Asked about what she regrets the most about her time with her warrior toy boy, Cheryl said: "The impact all this had on my children. Having a Masai warrior as a father was not easy for them. Daniel was trying his best, but he could never understand the Western ways and couldn't be the dad that they needed." Cheryl said that her children had missed out on having a proper father figure in their lives because of her relationship with Daniel and the break down of her first two marriages. Despite having no contact with Daniel, Cheryl maintained she still has good relationships with all of her children, referring to her daughter Mitsi as "the one good thing" to come out of her and Daniel's strange and difficult marriage. Following the pair's split, Masai warrior Daniel remained on the Isle of Wight where he now works in a supermarket.
Daily Mail
22-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE My mum married a Masai warrior she met on holiday in Kenya... it destroyed my childhood
The son of a woman who abandoned him and the rest of the family for a Masai warrior she met on holiday has spoken for the first time about how she 'ruined his childhood'. Stevie Liddington, 43, felt compelled to break his 30-year silence after reading MailOnline's sensational account of how his mother, Cheryl Thomasgood, regrets marrying Masai tribesman Daniel Lekimencho and swapping her home on the Isle of Wight for a mud hut. Cheryl, now 65, claimed in the article that she had maintained a 'good relationship' with all her four children, despite admitting the damage she had done to them through her actions. But web design company owner Stevie hit back and says he is 'ashamed to call her my mother'. And in stark contrast to Cheryl's recollections of her children being 'taken' with Daniel, Stevie said he viewed him as 'a stranger in our house' and recalled physical fights between Daniel and Cheryl. While the world viewed the relationship as a 'quirky story', Stevie's legacy from his mother's actions was years of therapy as he struggled against depression. Cheryl was aged 34 and on a holiday in the East African country in March 1994 when Daniel came to her hotel as part of a group that performed traditional Masai dancing for tourists. Within weeks of becoming besotted by him, she dumped her husband Mike Mason and her three children, to pursue a new life with the dashing 6ft 2in warrior who was ten years her junior. The couple later moved to Britain and married in February 1995 on the Isle of Wight and had a daughter Misti, Cheryl's fourth child, in January 1998. But the relationship with Daniel fizzled out a couple of years later after Cheryl complained that her 'spiritual warrior turned into a miserable sod, more like Victor Meldrew.' These days, Daniel works in a supermarket on the Isle of Wight. Stevie, now aged 43, contacted MailOnline to give his account of events and paints a much darker picture of a mother who selfishly turned her back on her 11-year-old son and his two siblings, leaving deep emotional scars in her wake. 'My mother did not just abandon her family in the 1990s – she ruined our childhoods,' he said. 'She left behind three children, including me, and never looked back in any meaningful or supportive way. 'She was never the kind of mother who cared about her children's emotional well-being, and even now, decades later, she continues to show who she truly is by dragging this all up again without a thought for the people it hurts.' Cheryl was never a stranger to publicity, conducting frequent press and TV interviews, and even wrote her own 1995 book on the affair, cheekily entitling it 'White Mischief' in a nod to the 1987 film about the so-called Happy Valley murder, starring Charles Dance and Greta Scacchi. And contrary to Cheryl's claims last week that she still maintains good relations with her children, Stevie – who now has his own family and lives in Seoul, South Korea -- said he has not exchanged a word with her in 10 years. 'She has never met her grandchildren. She has never made any real effort to be in our lives. Her portrayal of having 'good relationships' with her children is completely false - I have not spoken to her in years, my Brother left for Canada and myself to Korea to get away from her! 'My mother has always been wrapped up in her own story, her own image, and her own self-interest. 'This latest article is just another example of that. It may seem like a tale of reflection or regret, but to those of us who lived through it, it's a painful reminder of neglect, manipulation, and broken trust. 'It's hard to watch her seek sympathy from the public when the damage she caused to her own family remains unacknowledged and unhealed. 'I am ashamed to call her my mother, and deeply disgusted that she continues to rewrite the past while ignoring the consequences of her actions on those she left behind.' Stevie explained that his mother's abandonment 'didn't happen in a vacuum' and he 'had already been through hell as a child', including a spell in foster care due to the family's chaotic home life. Stevie and his younger brother were the children of Cheryl's first marriage to Robert Liddington, who left the family when Stevie was only five. He said: 'My father had left, my mother had a breakdown, and I saw things no child should ever witness — including her holding a knife to her own neck in front of me. We were put into foster care, living in poverty in London, terrified and unstable. 'Then came Mike Mason, a good man who gave us stability. He stepped up and gave us a home,' he said. Cheryl and Mike later had a daughter born in 1990. Added Stevie: 'And just when life finally started to feel normal, she destroyed it. With one phone call from Kenya, she told us she wasn't coming back. 'I saw Mike — who never drank — paralytic on the floor with grief. That's what she left behind.' Stevie has bitter memories of the publicity storm which descended on the family following Cheryl's betrayal of the family – and the brutal consequences on himself.'The media took over our lives,' he said. 'Crews came to our house to film like we were a reality show. The Big Breakfast. Tabloids. German documentaries.' There was no escape for him away from home, either. 'At school, classmates brought in newspapers to laugh at me. Teachers stood by or laughed along. I was publicly humiliated. People talk about childhood trauma like it's abstract — for me, it was printed in black and white on front pages.'And where was Cheryl? Chasing cameras. Giving interviews. Writing a book. She didn't ask how we were. She didn't check in. Our family crumbled.' Stevie says he is sceptical of his mother's present-day take on the events which devastated his upbringing. 'She claims to have regrets now, but I don't buy it. She's never taken accountability, not truly. Her version of 'reflection' is always about how she suffered, how she was tricked or heartbroken. 'Meanwhile, we — her kids — were left to clean up the wreckage of the choices she made.' He claims she wasn't truthful in her own recollections of those days.'What makes the [MailOnline] article even harder to read is her dishonesty. For example, the image painted of Daniel jumping in the garden, laughing with us — that never happened. 'We were not 'taken' with him. He was a stranger in our home who could barely speak English. Their relationship was violent, chaotic. I remember physical fights between the two. 'I was just a teenager, and I often had to look after Misti myself. There were times Cheryl would go missing for days, and I'd have to file missing person reports. I'd walk the parks for hours with Misti in her buggy, praying to whoever was listening that my mum wasn't dead. 'It triggered the worst fears from my earlier childhood — fears of suicide, abandonment, trauma repeating itself. I just wanted a normal life. The stress was unbearable.' With the help of counselling, Stevie says he has fought to lay the demons to rest and offer a better future for his own children. 'I've worked hard to break the cycle. I've had therapy, built a stable life, and became a father. I love my kids in a way Cheryl never loved us — not with presence, not with action. 'She says she wants peace, but peace isn't found in rewriting history. Peace comes with truth and responsibility — and she's still avoiding both.'She can cry for headlines, but I lived it. And I'll never forget it.'He said later relations between him and his mother have been little better.'The last time I saw Cheryl was about ten years ago when I visited England with my wife. 'Our relationship before that had always been inconsistent—sometimes I'd call, sometimes we'd go years without speaking. I often received abusive letters or emails.'She's a narcissistic person who has never taken real responsibility for her actions. She's spent her life blaming others—her parents, her sister, my dad Robert, then Mike Mason, then Daniel. 'I've heard a hundred versions of why she ran off to Africa. Her justifications shift constantly. I honestly don't think she's capable of genuine accountability. She says the right things sometimes, but her actions never match her words.' He said that reading Cheryl's account last week was 'incredibly frustrating'.'It began at a critical time in my life—those early, sensitive teenage years. I've tried for years to downplay it, to say 'every family has drama,' but through therapy I've had to accept that what Cheryl did was deeply damaging. I've suffered years of depression and anxiety as a result.' 'Reading the article as a father myself now, I find it shocking that she would do this again—rehashing the past for public consumption. It feels like she's learned nothing. Does she get some sort of kick from the attention? Is she really that lonely? The public may see a quirky story, but I see a selfish person who still hasn't grasped the damage she caused. 'I read the article's comments—many people call her foolish, and I agree. She was, and still is. In my opinion, she never should have had children.' He said that his half-sister remains in contact with Cheryl and stands by her, while his brother moved to Canada in his early 20s and has maintained an on-off relationship with his mother. He added: 'From what I've heard—mainly through Misti—he's also very upset about this recent article.' He added: 'I'm at a point in my life where I've had to close that door. I have children of my own now, and my priority is protecting them and taking care of my own mental health. Cheryl is not someone I can have in my life, not the way she is.'I've worked hard to create something stable and healthy—everything I lacked growing up. I run my own business and live overseas with my wife and children. 'Being a father has made me even more aware of the damage caused by my own upbringing, and I've done a lot of personal work to make sure that cycle ends with me. My focus now is on giving my children the love, stability, and presence I never received.'
The Sun
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Hairdresser who left hubby & 3 kids for toyboy Masai warrior after Kenya holiday reveals how story ended
A WOMAN who left her husband and three children for a Masai warrior "holiday husband" has revealed the regret she feels over her bizarre love affair. Decades after swapping her comfortable, suburban life on the Isle of Wight for a remote region of Kenya, Cheryl Thomasgood has spoken out on her disastrous marriage to a tribal Kenyan warrior. 9 9 She explained how she felt she was used as a "meal ticket" by Masai warrior Daniel Lekimencho who she met at the Bamburi Beach Hotel in Mombasa, Kenya. Cheryl was just 34 when she became besotted with the tribesman who travelled to her hotel as part of a group that performed traditional Masai dancing for tourists. Within weeks of meeting the hunky warrior Cheryl had dumped her second husband, Mike Mason, and their three children to be with her new tribal toy boy. The 6ft 2-inch-tall Kenyan warrior was ten years younger than Cheryl when they met and struck up an intimate relationship. Shortly after meeting the dashing warrior Cheryl flew home briefly to tell her husband Mike that their marriage was over before jetting back to the Samburu region of Kenya to live with her new man. Cheryl and her new partner made headlines across the globe with people left gobsmacked at her decision to abandon the comfortable middle-class life for a new home and partner in rural Kenya. Cheryl's life now consisted of helping the warrior cook, clean and hunt, sleeping on goatskin and surviving on a diet of cow's blood and cabbage in a mud hut. Cheryl and Daniel eventually decided to leave the hardships of life in remote Kenya behind and planned to have children in the UK. The bizarre pair returned to the Isle of Wight in 1995 and married on Valentine's Day, both wore traditional Masai clothing to the ceremony. Their marriage produced a daughter, Mitsi, who is now 27-years-old, before it came to an abrupt end. Cheryl has spoken out for the first time, more than 30 years later, after the couple's relationship fell apart when her spiritual husband became obsessed with wealth. She describes feeling used as a "meal ticket" in an emotional interview with the MailOnline. Having reached an age where she wants to reflect on her life Cheryl chose to speak out about her "tormented" relationship with Masai warrior Daniel. She said: "I made a huge mistake, it was very wrong of me, and I have a lot of regrets, especially about how it damaged my children." 9 9 Cheryl split with Daniel in 1999 just four years after they were married and one year after their daughter was born. Now, 65-year-old Cheryl lives alone in a seaside town in Somerset where she is well known among the local community. She has kept her controversial past hidden from the community with none of her friends aware of the bizarre relationship she once had with the Masai warrior. Cheryl has been doing a lot of thinking about her relationship and the damage it caused her and her family. She explained how her and her Masai lover became inseparable after meeting and would often discuss the Masai way of life, culture and focus on spiritual over material wealth. But Cheryl has now told how shortly after arriving in the UK Daniel became obsessed with material things and money. The odd couple lived in Newport on the Isle of Wight with Cheryl's three children after coming to the UK. Cheryl explained that Daniel quickly changed his outlook on life, becoming ever more obsessed with money and material gain, she described her warrior husband becoming a different person inf ront of her eyes. Cheryl believed she had met and married a spiritual warrior but described Daniel turning into more of a Victor Meldrew type character later in their relationship. She detailed how Daniel quickly became moody and miserable over the couples lot in life, wanting more money and more possessions, changed by life in the UK. The couple began to argue often with Cheryl seeing Daniel's spiritualism evaporating before the lure of middle-class living. Daniel reportedly began wanting for a bigger home, designer gear and cash to send home to Kenyan relatives. Cheryl recalled the only time Daniel being happy was when the Kenyan warrior was jumping around in the garden doing his traditional Masai dance. 9 9 9 She added: "He would say that he was getting ready for battle and wanted to jump as high as an elephant. The kids loved it, but it got on my nerves after a while." Cheryl began to question Daniel's motives in being with her after witnessing his transformation and new obsession with material wealth. Cheryl doubted that Daniel loved her and felt as if she had been used by the Masai warrior for material gain, beginning to think Daniel saw her as an escape route from his tribal life in Kenya. Her doubts set in soon after the pair married in the UK but she chose to stick out their relationship to prove to the people who doubted them that it could work. Trying to pinpoint what went wrong in the peculiar relationship Cheryl blamed a slew of drastic cultural differences between her and her husband. She reportedly felt that adjusting to life in the UK was too tough for Daniel and his struggles assimilating, combined with the pressure on the pair to make their relationship work, led to the eventual end of their marriage. Cheryl admitted that she suffered sexual abuse as a young girl and spoke about the harrowing difficulties she faced growing up in a dysfunctional London household with alcoholic parents, she was reportedly contemplating suicide at the time she met Daniel. She revealed how she was urged to go on her Kenyan holiday by a friend who was in the same church choir as her, the pair went on the holiday that would change her life forever together. When Cheryl went to Kenya she was at a low point in her life she said, suffering with childhood trauma and stuck in an unhappy marriage to her second husband Mike. She had seen Daniel was an answer to her problems, believing he could help her heal and find peace through spirituality. Cheryl now admits that her love affair with the Masai warrior was just an escape from her problems and not an answer to them. Asked about what she regrets the most about her time with her warrior toy boy, Cheryl said: "The impact all this had on my children. Having a Masai warrior as a father was not easy for them. Daniel was trying his best, but he could never understand the Western ways and couldn't be the dad that they needed." Cheryl said that her children had missed out on having a proper father figure in their lives because of her relationship with Daniel and the break down of her first two marriages. Despite having no contact with Daniel Cheryl maintains that she still has good relationships with all of her children, referring to her daughter Mitsi as "the one good thing" to come out of her and Daniel's strange and difficult marriage. Her eldest son Steve is now aged 43 while his brother Tommy is 41, her daughter Chloe is aged 34 and Mitsi is 27. Cheryl insists that she loves her new quiet life and has zero intention of marrying again following a hattrick of "disasters." Following the pairs disastrous marriage and eventual split Masai warrior Daniel remained on the Isle of Wight where he now works in a supermarket. 9 9
Daily Mail
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE I dumped my husband after falling madly in love with a Masai warrior on holiday in Kenya... we wed and had a daughter. What happened next was heartbreaking
A former hairdresser who left her husband and three children for a Masai warrior has revealed that she is haunted by regret and felt used as 'meal ticket' by him so that he could escape poverty for a better life in the UK. Cheryl Thomasgood made headlines around the world when she swapped her comfortable home on the Isle of Wight for a mud hut in a remote region of Kenya after falling in love with Daniel Lekimencho. Cheryl who was aged 34 at the time was on holiday in the East African country in March 1994 when Daniel came to her hotel as part of a group that performed traditional Masai dancing for tourists. Within weeks of becoming besotted by him, she dumped her husband Mike Mason and her three children, two of them from her first marriage to pursue a new life with the 6ft 2-inch-tall dashing warrior who was ten years her junior. Her bizarre relationship with Daniel was widely featured in talk shows and newspapers at the time with the nation perplexed and shocked at how Chery could abandon her family and their middle-class life for one gruelling poverty with a Masai warrior she barely knew. After her three-week holiday when she first met him, she briefly returned to the UK to tell her second husband Mike that their marriage was over and then went to live with Daniel and his tribe in the Samburu region of Kenya. Her life involved helping them to hunt and cook while she slept on goatskin and survived on a diet of cow's blood and cabbage. She and Daniel eventually returned to England in 1995 and married on Valentine's Day of that year at Newport Registry Office on the Isle of Wight with both wearing traditional Masai clothing. Now, more than 30 years later Cheryl revealed that she has chosen to speak for the first time in honest detail about her relationship with Daniel because she remains tormented by it and is at an age where she is reflecting on her life. Speaking to MailOnline, she cried: 'I made a huge mistake, it was very wrong of me, and I have a lot of regrets, especially about how it damaged my children. Now I just want to make peace with it all. 'My relationship with Daniel was crazy, it became a media circus, the whole country was fascinated by us and I'm now trying to make sense of it. Would I do it all again? No, I wouldn't. I paid a very high price for being with him.' Cheryl is now aged 65 and lives alone in a seaside town in Somerset after splitting from Daniel in 1999, a year after their daughter Misti was born. She is well known in her local community, where she has been living for the past decade but revealed that none of her friends know about her controversial past and the notoriety she acquired. She said: 'I've been doing a lot of thinking about what I did, all the hurt I have suffered and caused and all the things that happened. It's quite a lot to take on and talking honestly about it now helps me. But I'm sure that a lot of people who've got to know me over recent years will be very shocked to find out about it all.' Cheryl revealed that what attracted her most to Daniel when she met him at the Bamburi Beach Hotel in Mombasa was that he was the first man who she felt truly listened to her and that he was not obsessed by money and material things. She said: 'We became inseparable soon after meeting. He would speak about the Masai way of life, their culture and how they weren't obsessed by materialism, and he was also a very sincere. Something very deep changed in me, and I fell in love not just with him but all that the Masai stood for.' But what still shocks her to this day is how quickly Daniel changed after arriving in the UK as he became obsessed with money and material things and constantly complained about life. Speaking from her neatly maintained semi-detached home, Cheryl broke into laughter as she described him as a Masai version of Victor Meldrew-the perpetually miserable and sullen character from BBC comedy One Foot In The Grave. The couple lived in Newport with Cheryl and her three children at the time; two boys called Steve and Tommy, who she had with her first husband Robert; and her daughter Chloe, who was born during her second marriage to Mike. Cheryl recalled: 'He came to the UK and became a different person. I thought I had a met a spiritual Masai warrior, but I ended up with a miserable old sod who became more like Victor Meldrew. 'He was always moody and complained a lot and we started fighting all the time. All his spiritualism quickly went out of the window. He became obsessed by money, so that he could send it to his relatives in Kenya, designer clothes and wanting a bigger home.' As a smile spread across her face, she recalled: 'The only time when he was really happy was when he was jumping up and down in the garden doing his traditional Masai warrior dance. He would say that he was getting ready for battle and wanted to jump as high as an elephant. The kids loved it, but it got on my nerves after a while.' Cheryl revealed that Daniel's transformation and obsession with money caused her to question his motives as to why he wanted to be with her. She said: 'I doubted if he loved me and felt that he just used me as a meal ticket to escape his life in Kenya. Once he was in the UK it all became about him and what he wanted, and he just wanted more and more. 'He didn't seem to care about me. He started driving me nuts and I realised that this was just a marriage of convenience for him. I moved a mountain for him, but I knew that he wouldn't move a molehill for me.' Cheryl said that she started feeling these doubts soon after the couple married but felt compelled to stay in the relationship because she wanted to prove that they could be happy, despite public opinion that they could not and that she was a bad wife and mother. She said: 'Things became very toxic between us, I realised that I had made a big mistake, but I had to continue putting the effort into the relationship.' In recent years she said she has been thinking more and more about what went wrong in her relationship with Daniel. She added: 'There was just too much pressure on both of us and too many cultural differences. I think it was all too much for him in particular. Combine that with the doubts that I had over why he wanted to marry me and if he really loved me and things were never going to end well between us.' Cheryl broke into tears as she recalled her childhood revealing that she suffered years of sexual abuse and was raised in a dysfunctional household in London by parents who were alcoholics. At the time she met Daniel she was contemplating suicide and battling depression and was urged to go on holiday to Kenya by a friend who was in the same church choir as her. The two went on the break that changed Cheryl's life together. Cheryl said: 'I suffered a lot of trauma in my childhood and that's something I'm still dealing with. When I went to Kenya I was at a really low point in my life; trapped in an unhappy marriage and suffering from mental health problems. 'In Daniel, I was looking for healing, inner peace and spirituality and thought that I had found all of that in him because in Kenya, he had all of those qualities. But sadly, that didn't last. 'I thought I was in love with him but really I was just trying to escape my unhappy life and cope with my trauma.' Cheryl is still undergoing therapy for her childhood trauma and has also been diagnosed with PTSD. She does not have any contact with Daniel, who remained on the Isle of Wight after they split and works in a supermarket. Asked about what she regrets the most about her time with him, Cheryl is quick to point out: 'The impact all this had on my children. Having a Masai warrior as a father was not easy for them. Daniel was trying his best, but he could never understand the Western ways and couldn't be the dad that they needed. 'The children missed out on having a proper father, not just with Daniel but also my other two husbands. All of them were useless, bad fathers and I was too mentally unwell to be a good mother and made a lot of bad life decisions because of this. 'My children deserved stability and love, but I was not able to provide them that, not with any of my marriages. That is my biggest regret, but we all have them and that's just life.' Cheryl added: 'Any parent wants their children to have a loving, stable home but all I gave them was chaos and uncertainty and that still hurts. I went from one disastrous marriage to another.' Despite her regrets over her children, Cheryl maintained that she has good relations with them all and regularly sees them. She refers to her youngest daughter Misti, 27 as the 'one good thing' to have come out of her marriage to Daniel. Her eldest son Steve is now aged 43 while his brother Tommy is 41. Her daughter Chloe is aged 34. She added: 'I love Misti and all my other children to bits. I'm very proud of them all and they've grown up to be fantastic adults. Misti reminds me that not everything with Daniel was negative. She's grown up to be a very intelligent and articulate woman.' Cheryl insisted that she now loves the quiet life and has no intention of every marrying again following a hattrick of 'disasters.' Asked what advice she would give any woman who goes on a break and finds a 'holiday husband' she warned: 'Be careful what you wish for and be aware of what you're getting into, or you could up regretting it for the rest of your life.'
