Ace’s Wild

‘INSIDE every rock chick there is a suburban housewife just waiting to get married, get pregnant and get her face in the pages of Hello! magazine.

‘D’you want spag bol or lasagne for your dinner, Liam?’

So much water has flowed under the celebrity bridge since All Saints called it quits that younger readers might not know who Natalie Appleton is.

But way back in the days when Gareth Gates was just a young virgin from Bradford with a stammer, barely a day went by when Natalie and her sister Nicole weren’t in the papers.

They partied hard, squired by a succession of famous boyfriends – for Nat, the likes of Mayfair dungeon regular Jamie Theakston and the first Mr Angelina Jolie, Jonny Lee Miller; for Nic, Robbie Williams, Bush’s Gavin Rossdale and even Leonardo DiCaprio.

But deep down all the sisters really wanted was to find their own rock star husband, hole up in their own rock star mansion and start popping out little rock stars and rock chicks.

And so it is that Natalie, or Mrs Liam Howlett as she is known since her marriage to the Prodigy star, throws open the doors of the couple’s Essex home and invites Hello! inside to meet baby Ace.

She tells us how Ace was born by caesarean section at London’s St John & Elizabeth Hospital on March 2, how he contracted a chest infection soon after birth and how he spent his first few days in intensive care at the ‘exclusive’ Portland Hospital as doctors cleared the oxygen that had accumulated round his chest.

She reveals that Liam is a hands-on father, changing nappies, helping out with feeds and getting up early to allow his wife some extra sleep.

And she talks about how her 11-year-old daughter Rachel (by stripper Karl Robinson) has adapted to the new addition to the family.

‘There is a blanket of happiness around everything I do,’ Natalie says.

And with that she was back off into the kitchen to prepare a nice meal for when Liam gets home from work…’

Posted: 6th, May 2004 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink