Chelsea star Frank Lampard talks candidly about love, loss - and Christine Bleakley

 
Engaged: Frank Lampard and Christine Bleakley
Louise Jury29 August 2013

Chelsea star Frank Lampard has admitted playing cloak and dagger with the paparazzi when he first met Christine Bleakley to protect his children.

Lampard, 35, tells tomorrow’s ES Magazine that he and TV presenter Bleakley, now his fiancée, waited a long time before she met his daughters, Luna, eight, and Isla, six, because the role of a new partner in children’s lives is a tough one.

“Christine didn’t want to be brought into their lives in the early stages and then go away,” he said. But having kept the relationship a secret until they were ready, Bleakley has “done it brilliantly”.

The footballer broke up with the girls’ mother, Spanish model Elen Rivas, the year after the unexpected death of his beloved mother, Pat, aged 58, in 2008. The death “completely changed me as a person” and he “zoned out for quite a while”.

After meeting Bleakley, “when I didn’t expect to meet anyone”, they were intensely private to begin with and hid from photographers to keep the blossoming relationship under wraps.

Lampard dodged the questions of when the couple will marry, and their plans for children together. “We know what we’re going to do and we’re going to do it in our own time,” he said. But he added: “She’s my best mate. Simple as that. Sounds a bit corny but it is like that.”

Chelsea’s highest-ever goal scorer and the current holder of 98 England caps, Lampard admitted he would like to make it 100. And although he would not divulge plans for what he might do after football, he said he would not want to play elsewhere in England. “I’ll be a Chelsea person for life.”

More immediately, Frankie vs The Rowdy Romans, the second in a series of children’s stories he has written, was published this month.

Conceding he is not the world’s most talented footballer, he said he makes the most of what he has. “I have never seen a player as driven and determined as me, quietly determined, that’s why I always want to do the best.”

Read the full interview in tomorrow’s ES Magazine

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