The new boyfriend who helped heal Sally Phillips’ broken heart after her husband ran away and dumped her for a yoga instructor is a former soldier she went into business with, MailOnline can reveal.
Comedian Sally Phillips has found love again with a former soldier after her husband left her for a Russian yoga teacher.
The Miranda star gushed about her new man – whom she only called Ian – during an onstage interview at the Edinburgh Festival.
She said he was “to die for” and revealed that they met in 2019 through a mutual friend.
Now MailOnline can reveal that the man who helped heal Sally’s broken heart is 53-year-old former army captain Ian Pilcher.
New relationship: The new boyfriend who helped mend Sally Phillips’ broken heart after her husband ran off with a yoga instructor is a former soldier, MailOnline can reveal
Ian served in the King’s Regiment for nine years after graduating from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.
He left the military in 1998 to work for a private law enforcement company and now runs his own performance management company.
The couple live together in West London and run a catering business called Secret Supper Club Ltd.
In a series of heartwarming photos posted on Sally’s social media, Ian is seen gazing back at her in admiration from across the dining room table, while another shows the beloved couple sharing a champagne lunch in a park.
At Edinburgh Festival, Sally discussed her new romance and said she felt ‘very lucky to have been given a second chance’ during an interview with How To Be 60 Live!
She said: ‘My husband left me for a member of the Russian Yoga Federation, although I am legally no longer allowed to say that, but he will not listen to this.
‘Luckily my boyfriend introduced me to Ian and I’ve been working with Ian for four years now. And he is to die for.
“And actually, to be honest, when he kissed me, this is true. I’m going to share too much because comedians do.”
Loved up: The Miranda star recently gushed about her new man – whom she called only Ian – during an interview on stage at the Edinburgh Festival
“But when he kissed me I did think of that line, you have to be kissed a lot by someone who knows how. So I met someone who knows how to kiss.’
Sally, who shares three sons with her ex-husband, met her new partner Ian two years after her marriage to Andrew ended in 2017.
She has previously spoken about how a rift was created after the birth of their eldest son, Olly, 17, who has Down syndrome. They also share sons Luke, 13, and Tom, 10.
Speaking on TBN’s talk show Soul Tears in 2018, Sally revealed how the pain of suffering two miscarriages also took its toll on her marriage to her now ex-husband.
Sally said: ‘I ended up giving birth in a hospital toilet on one of those cardboard trays and what came out looked like a baby. I helplessly handed the baby to a nurse, she said they would run tests.
“I said I wanted my baby back, but they burned him or her, because they said it didn’t qualify, because it was only ‘Products of Conception,’ which of course isn’t how you feel about it at all.”
All over: Sally, who shares three sons with her ex-husband, met her new partner Ian two years after her marriage to Andrew Bermejo ended in 2017 after 14 years
Family: She has previously spoken about how a rift arose after the birth of their eldest son, Olly, 17, who has Down syndrome. They also share sons Luke, 13, and Tom, 10 (pictured in 2018)
Sally said the loss of their first baby caused a rift in her marriage to her now ex-husband Andrew.
He didn’t take the miscarriage as much as Sally did, as she was only 14 weeks old.
She continued, “If you’ve had a baby in the first six months you understand what the heck this means and once you’ve had a child you bond very early on, don’t you? That was grim and very difficult to deal with as a couple.
“We had a divide that started after Olly in that my husband and I treated the diagnosis in very different ways and then this division about babies widened, because he hadn’t really understood that I was pregnant. Fourteen weeks isn’t that long, but in your body you feel the illness, the excitement and all those things.’