upsetting

HE is among the world’s highest-paid male models, with smouldering good looks and a six-pack you could grate cheese on.

But David Gandy has swapped his jet-setting lifestyle for school runs, sleeping alone and discussions about HRT after becoming a father.

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The Essex-born hunk — who has daughters Matilda, six, and Tabitha, three, with partner Steph Mendoros — may be desired by women across the globe.

But he spent three months kipping by himself on the floor after Tabitha’s birth in 2021, because she was taking up his side of the bed.

In his most candid interview yet, David — who shot to fame wearing tiny white briefs in Dolce & Gabbana ads — tells the latest episode of Fabulous’ No Parental Guidance podcast: “Steph, in the first few months, was sleeping with the baby and was breastfeeding.

“And just so she got a good night’s sleep, she would have the baby there falling asleep.

“That is a situation where you are just going to be a hindrance. You are taking up room. You can’t help.”

He adds: “So when we were building our house, Steph had just given birth to Tabs.

I failed at labour. I kind of turned into George Clooney from ER and thought, “I’m delivering this baby. I was at the business end and the midwifehad to ask me to get out of the way

David

“We were staying in Steph’s old flat while the house was being built, and Matilda had this little room.

“I had nowhere to sleep. I slept on the floor for three months. I had to spin like a dog, trying to find somewhere to sleep.

‘Christmas alone’

“But as long as your partner can get sleep, that’s the main thing. I am fine with no sleep. Steph is awful.”

Since settling down with Steph, a barrister, heartthrob David is now more likely to be found hanging out with the other dads at the school gates than strutting his stuff on the catwalk.

And it seems the menopause is a hot topic for men as well as women.

“The dads have had the [HRT] discussion at the school gates,” David, 45, tells comedian Hannah East and model and influencer Louise Boyce, who host the podcast.

“They say, ‘Get the patch’. Then one dad will go, ‘They’re very horny on the patch!’.”

David and Steph got together in 2016 and daughter Matilda was born two years later.

The model admits that when his girlfriend went into labour, he turned into George Clooney’s character Dr Doug Ross from US hospital drama, ER.

“I failed at labour,” he says. “We still argue about it. I kind of turned into George Clooney from ER and thought, ‘I’m delivering this baby’.

Of course I tried the gas and air. They told me to go and have a sleep and then Steph needed me and the midwife had to go back to Steph and say, ‘I can’t wake him up

David

“I was down at the business end. The midwife had to ask me if she could have her stool back and if I could get out of the way.”

Like most men, David could not resist having a sneaky puff of the gas and air intended to relieve labour pains — only for it to knock him out completely.

He reveals: “Of course I tried the gas and air. They told me to go and have a sleep and then Steph needed me and the midwife had to go back to Steph and say, ‘I can’t wake him up’,” he recalls.

It is all a world away from David’s globe-trotting days as a top-earning male model with an estimated £12million fortune.

After growing up in Billericay, he went on to study marketing at the University of Gloucestershire, where his flatmate entered him into a modelling competition on ITV’s This Morning without his knowledge.

He went on to win a contract with Select Model Management — and a star was born.

His now- infamous campaign for Dolce and Gabanna’s Light Blue fragrance in 2007 — which saw him squeeze into tiny white trunks to cavort on a boat with a brunette — set women’s pulses racing and launched him to stardom.

He now has more than one million followers on Instagram as well as 25million likes on TikTok, not to mention high-profile campaigns for Burberry and Hugo Boss.

After meeting Steph and becoming a dad, he cut back on the commitments that involved him take around 100 flights a year, and has recently launched his own line of underwear for his David Gandy Wellwear brand.

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But it could have ended very differently for David — who has also had high-profile romances with singer Mollie King, musical theatre actress Samantha Barks and TV host Laura Whitmore — because he thought Steph had stood him up on their first date nine years ago.

“We met through one of my good friends,” he recalls.

“We kind of knew each other before — we only lived a mile and a half away from each other. We arranged to go for a date, but Steph has a terrible sense of direction and ended up in the wrong pub.”

He adds: “When me and Steph got together, there was a discussion, like ‘When are we having children?’.

“I said I’ve been working solidly. I didn’t take holidays. I didn’t take time off.

“I spent Christmas alone because I was so exhausted sometimes. I just want two years of us two to enjoy being together’.”

Now, having had two kids with Steph, David thinks there should be more education for men about the hormone changes women go through when they embrace parenthood.

“When babies are born, no one ever tells the husband about the hormones,” he says. “Your wife’s hormones are all over the place, before and after giving birth.

I think we are so scared to let our children even out the front door

David

“No one explains that you are probably going to be wrong about everything for the next year and to just put up with it. Just go, ‘OK darling’.”

‘Give kids freedom’

While, nowadays, parents are often super-protective and more overbearing than previous generations, David is making a conscious effort to relax when it comes to raising his daughters.

He explains: “I’m trying to tell myself not to be too protective.

“I think we are so scared to let our children even out the front door.

At nine years old, I was on a bike going through Billericay, travelling five miles out, and my parents were like, ‘It’s cool’.

“My kids are outside for 20 seconds at a supermarket and I’m panicking. I just think we need to allow our kids a bit more freedom.

“That’s advice for all of us — ‘Don’t worry, no one knows what they’re doing’. Generally, everyone turns out OK.”

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But while he tries to be laid back, David, who is also an ambassador for Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, admits he is not a fan of the trend for “gentle parenting”.

He says: “I teach them, ‘You’re not having iPads. First of all, you have a conversation around the dinner table’.

“I take colouring stuff and I always make sure they’re entertained so they are not bored.

“But they are very polite. I’ve always said, ‘You don’t talk to someone like that. You don’t ask someone like that. Go and get it yourself. Go and do it yourself’.

“I got to a point with my mum and dad where they just needed to give me a look. It seems to work.

“My mum’s best threat that used to shut me up really quickly was, ‘I’m going to come and take your pants down in front of everyone and smack your bum’.

“My mum and dad never smacked me, but it was the threat of my bum being pulled out in front of everyone.”

And while his children might have excellent table manners, David jokes they treat him like a live-in chef at their home in London’s Richmond Park.

He says: “We have a pretty good rhythm going now. I do mornings — the kids are up with me.

“I do the breakfast, which they order from me.

“I am the waiter. I say, ‘What would you like? Do you want porridge today?’.

“And they say, ‘Daddy, I don’t want porridge, I want waffles. Can I have waffles with honey?’. Matilda musy think she’s at a Michelin-star restaurant.

“It’s actually not that chaotic. I put everything out in the evening as I am not a morning person.

“I’m OK once I get to my espresso machine.”

Former Emmerdale star Kelli Hollis has opened up about whether she still watches the ITV soap and she referred to her former colleague when revealing a ‘boycott’

Former Emmerdale actress Kelli Hollis, 49, has confessed to “boycotting” the ITV soap after her on-screen daughter’s character was written out. The star, who portrayed Ali Spencer from 2011 to 2015, revealed she’s been “dipping in and out” of watching the show since Amelia Spencer, played by Daisy Campbell, left the Dales.

She told Manchester Evening News: “I will be honest, I have been boycotting them a little while since they got rid of my daughter (Amelia Spencer).

“That is the Spencer clan gone now. But I do keep in touch because I still have loads of friends there so I do dip in and out but it is really hard to keep up with the soaps – I just don’t have the time.”

Kelli, who returned to the UK in November after spending two-and-a-half years in Thailand, played the mother of Sean and Amelia Spencer. Daisy Campbell, who portrayed Amelia, spent an impressive 13 years on the show.

In a previous chat, the actress fondly recalled her time on Emmerdale, saying: “Do you know what? The best memories are being with the family.

“One of my favourite stories to tell is the day that I met Daisy who plays Amelia. She is as old as my son is now, in her 20s. I remember meeting her on that first day, she was six-years-old and she had this little hair and her two front teeth missing.

“And that was special just being part of her and working with Alicia Eyo (who played Ruby Haswell) too and just the Spencer gang and we still all speak regularly now. So my favourite memory is the family there. Definitely.”

Daisy, who intends to launch her own pilates studio, recently revealed being “axed” from Emmerdale, explaining the abrupt decision plunged her into a “dark hole”.

Speaking to The Sun, she said: “When it’s been ripped away from you, because that’s what it genuinely felt like, it was so out of the blue – you do just get into a bit of a hole of, oh God, like, can I do this?”

Regarding how it unfolded, she remembered: “It was at the beginning of the year, things were quiet. Obviously, we had the new producer come in. And then when it came to contracts, nothing came through, so I was like, ‘oh’… and then obviously it happened.

“It was upsetting, because I loved it, and I loved the job. You always think selfishly, like, why is this happening? Like, why me?”

Despite feeling she’d sacrificed portions of her childhood for the role, she acknowledged it was an honour to feature in Emmerdale, and she wouldn’t alter that experience.

Amelia also confided to RadioTimes it was “so sad” shooting her farewell scenes, with her character departing after relocating to Leicester with her daughter Esther following Tom King’s (played by James Chase) conviction.