One of the perks of being married to a Victoria’s Secret model, says former England striker Peter Crouch, is that your wife goes off to work to pose in sexy undies, then gets to bring home some of the merchandise.
Back of the net, mate?! Alas, no.
‘Do you know what she came home with? A fleece dressing gown,’ he says.
‘Of all the things to take from a Victoria’s Secret photoshoot.’ But Abbey Clancy, aka Mrs Crouch, loves her fleece dressing gown.
‘Pete hates it but I’m going to be buried in it,’ she says.
‘Sometimes she wears it over her regular clothes, like an old-fashioned housecoat.
‘She possibly even vacuums in it, because she vacuums all the time (Dyson downstairs, Miele upstairs, if you are wondering, which I was).
‘It’s a borderline obsession,’ says Pete of the vacuuming.
The thing about vacuuming in a dressing gown, though, is that you don’t want the cord dangling.
Peter, 42, replays how Abbey, 37, secures her dressing gown.
‘She double knots! One knot to the front, one to the back. It’s like getting into Fort Knox.
‘What a joy it is to be at home with the Crouch-Clancys. Technically, I’m not at home with them — we are in a photographic studio near their home in Surrey — yet after reading their new book, I feel I could be in their actual house, having left my mucky shoes at the front door, obviously on Abbey’s insistence, and accepted a coaster to put my coffee cup on.’
Their new book, a kind of (albeit selective) A-Z of their life, is called The Therapy Crouch.
It is not, Abbey stresses, a book about how to bag a footballer, be a Wag, or stay married —even when your millionaire husband buys you a phone charging cable for Christmas.
It is an extension of their popular podcast of the same name.
When did Pete start his podcast?
Pete started his own chart-topping podcast in 2018, but when Abbey began to make brief appearances listeners loved the banter.
Watch: TECH savvy monkey is spotted ‘working’ on computer at railway office
He, in turn, loved the fact her personality came shining through in a way that it hadn’t before — not even when she won Strictly in 2013 — and a joint podcast was born.
‘I think there was a perception about Abbey — you know, married to a footballer, model, thick, the sort that goes shopping and leaves the babies with a nanny.
Nothing could be further from the truth with Abbey. She’s incredibly funny, sharp …”Sharp?’ interrupts Abbey, sharply. ‘Is that a compliment?”Yeah.
Sharp as in witty,’ says Pete.
‘I thought you meant sharp-tongued.’
‘Well, that too.’
When did Pete and Abbey Clancy meet?
‘It is 18 years since these two met by the toilets in a Liverpool pub. He was a 24-year-old playing for Liverpool FC; she was a 19-year-old finalist in the Britain’s Next Top Model contest.
She decided he was the one on the spot, then went to the loo. When she came back, he was talking to another girl and she wasn’t having it.
‘Our first row, and we weren’t even together yet,’ he says.
He was living in a grotty flat at the time, where he kept dried pasta in the fridge and slept on a camp bed that didn’t even — Abbey is still horrified, nearly two decades on — have matching bedding.
Abbey swept in, with Marigolds. ‘She brought cushions, flowers…’
