By Jo Macfarlane
Last updated at 12:58 AM on 04th April 2010
Comments (0) Add to My Stories When world champion boxer Joe Calzaghe waltzed unsteadily on to the dance floor with his glamorous Russian partner Kristina Rihanoff in Strictly Come Dancing, he was an instant hit with millions of television viewers.
But for one woman, far away from the sequined outfits and rapturous applause, the couple’s sultry dance moves hit a much more bitter note.
Model and actress Jo-Emma Larvin, 31, was the Welsh middleweight’s partner for more than five years and had dreamed of becoming the future Mrs Calzaghe.
Happy again: Jo-Emma Larvin says she is glad to be out of her 'negative relationship' with Joe Calzaghe
But now, eight months after their relationship broke down, she has revealed for the first time how she watched fame, ambition and a spiralling dependence on cocaine change the amiable boxer, who to the rest of the world was the down-to-earth undefeated hero known as the ‘Pride of Wales’.
She describes how he began taking cocaine at parties but, as the drug took hold, was eventually using it up to three times a week – often while he was alone in their home.
Jo-Emma’s revelations come after Calzaghe, a former BBC Sports Personality Of The Year who has twice been honoured by the Queen, was forced to issue a humiliating apology to the nation last week following his confession that he used the class A drug.
The 38-year-old boxer, who is now in a relationship with Siberian-born Kristina, claimed he had only taken cocaine ‘occasionally’ since retiring from the sport in February last year and told fans of his ‘regret’.
But Jo-Emma says he found it increasingly difficult to go more than a few days without using the drug. She says Calzaghe:
• Threatened to make her 'the most hated woman in Britain' if she ever spoke out about him after they split up;
• Allegedly cheated on her during their relationship with a woman he had only just met;
• Was possessive and controlling and stood in the way of her modelling and acting career; and
• Suffered bouts of intense jealousy and had alcohol-fuelled arguments with her.
Jo-Emma, who was brought up in Hull, is attractive and bubbly and it is easy to see why she caught Joe’s eye. Theirs was a passionate affair which began in early 2004 when the couple met at a gym in West London, well before Joe had hit the big time.
‘I really fancied him and thought he was gorgeous. We chatted and he invited me to a fight,’ she recalls.
At the time, Joe was in the middle of a divorce battle with his wife Mandy, the mother of his two children, Joe and Connor.
Jo-Emma says he poured his heart out to her about his frustration. Mostly, he was upset about the amount of money he was having to part with.
‘He told people I was his angel, his rock. He said I came at a great time in his life and he needed the support,’ she says.
He's possessive and controlling, which he would admit himself... and he really didn't like me talking to other menWithin three months, Jo-Emma had given up her Surrey flat and moved in with Joe to a house outside Newport, Gwent. She happily put her career on hold so Joe’s could flourish and their relationship was ‘very normal – not at all starry’.
They went to the cinema, ate out regularly, spent evenings at home watching DVDs and bought a golden retriever puppy called Sonny.
‘Joe was down to earth. He still used to shop at River Island. He wasn’t vain and that’s what I fell in love with,’ says Jo-Emma.
The first time she saw him fight, she was terrified. ‘I cried before it even happened and thought, I just want you to do something else.
But I learned some fighters are cleverer and think more about tactics and the more I saw how good Joe was, the easier it got, although I still got mad butterflies with the tension.’
Living far from London, it became easy for Joe to suggest she didn’t go to modelling auditions. Initially, she agreed because of the hassle of travelling at the last minute. Then he became more forceful and Jo-Emma started to see a jealous side.
‘Joe didn’t like me doing a lot of the modelling stuff – anything that involved another man. I remember one audition for a coffee advert, which would have involved me shooting with a male model and he was adamant I shouldn’t do that.
It was classic male jealousy, which I can understand. But he’s possessive and controlling, which he would admit himself. And he really didn’t like me talking to other men.’
Joe also stopped her going out with certain friends, without apparent reason.
Yet despite all of this, he could be very romantic. He took her to Venice for their second anniversary and gave her a ring studded with diamonds. It was a gentle form of manipulation which was to become more pronounced.
‘He would say, “Why are you even going to go and audition? You won’t get it anyway.” He would just put me down. It felt horrible, when the guy you’re supposed to love does that.’
Party animal: Joe with Kristina Rihanoff at a London nightclub last month
For a while, they shared the same agent, but again Joe blocked Jo-Emma’s career. ‘Joe actually said to him, “I don’t want my girlfriend becoming famous – I don’t want her doing anything.”
‘We watched one episode of Strictly once, obviously before he was offered the chance to do it himself, and he said, “I’d never let my girlfriend do that.”’
Jo-Emma says Joe was very focused on his career and ‘always knew he was the best’ but believed his talent was going unrecognised. It made him very moody and left him grumpy and argumentative, particularly in the build-up to big fights.
She says Joe started ‘around 90 per cent’ of their arguments. They had screaming rows over small things and most of them, she says, happened when Joe had been drinking. ‘I’d say he was quite a big drinker. Boxers train very hard so when they can let go, they do it properly. That’s when we’d fight.’
During 2008, Jo-Emma began to question whether their relationship would last. She had pictured them growing old together, but their rows had become more frequent and she had occasionally tried to leave.
But Joe would apologise, begging her to stay. She could not imagine being without him and always went back.
His new-found fame, though, was turning him into a different person.
He was so vain, he would kiss his own muscles in the mirror
The previous December he had won the BBC Sports Personality Of The Year, voted for by the public, after high-profile wins against US middleweight Jeff Lacy and Danish fighter Mikkel Kessler. And the OBE he collected in 2003 was upgraded to an MBE in the 2008 Queen’s Birthday Honours.
Jo-Emma proudly went along to both ceremonies. But the down-to-earth man who shopped in River Island was changing, and now insisted on wearing designer labels.
‘He was so vain, he would kiss his own muscles in the mirror. He wasn’t like that at the start. The fame went to his head. The man I loved disappeared.
‘He was so focused on himself, he became hard work. He was argumentative and snappy and would talk down to me. He only wanted to talk about himself and would lose interest if you tried to change the subject.’
Jo-Emma ran the London Marathon that year but says Joe did not help her train or offer support. He went on a run with her only once and, although he did come to watch her race, he disappeared off to an event after she crossed the finishing line, leaving her to celebrate with her mother. ‘It was a big deal to me,’ she said. ‘I was a bit hurt. After all, I’d been to every one of his fights.’
Joe began to talk about quitting boxing and becoming a celebrity. He admired Vinnie Jones, who became a successful Hollywood actor after giving up football.
Jo-Emma remembers Joe looking at himself in the mirror, saying: ‘I’m going to be a superstar.’
One night, not long before Joe’s final fight at Madison Square Garden in November 2008, Joe had been drinking. ‘He turned to me and said, “You’re my little support girl. After the last fight, I’m doing my own thing. The celeb doesn’t need the support girlfriend any more.”
‘Because he’d had a drink I didn’t take much notice of him. He could be nasty like that, sometimes. But it was a really hurtful thing to say. He was saying, you’ve been amazing but I don’t need you any more.’
It would be easy to suggest Joe was feeling insecure after giving up his career, which left him the longest-reigning boxing world champion of modern times.
But Jo-Emma says that far from feeling sad about retiring from sport, Joe was excited.
‘More than anything, he wanted to be more than just a sportsman. After the last fight, he was so happy. Once he decided he wanted to become a superstar, everything changed.’
In December 2008, Joe was asked to give an after-dinner speech at a business event in Rotherham.
Jo-Emma went along, but the couple began to argue when Joe decided he wanted to leave.
Jo-Emma was comforted by a woman she had only just met but ended up leaving and taking a taxi to her mother’s house in Hull, while Joe stayed behind.
Brave face: Jo-Emma and Joe smile for the camera after he retired from boxing in February last year
Two weeks later, Joe’s mobile phone rang when the couple were in bed. ‘I could hear this woman’s voice really clearly. She said, “Do you remember me? Do you remember that night we had together?” Joe mumbled something and put the phone down.
‘I was really suspicious and texted the number, pretending to be Joe. The girl who responded was the same one who had comforted me in Rotherham. She suggested in the text they had kissed.’
Furious, she confronted Joe who claimed that he was ‘too drunk’ to remember. Jo-Emma left to go to her mother’s. But Joe apologised and begged her to come home. ‘He was very good at saying sorry and I came back.’
Joe retired from boxing in February 2009. And it was then he started to use cocaine on a casual basis.
‘I became aware of him taking cocaine at parties at the weekends,’ says Jo-Emma. ‘There’d be people who did it and people who didn’t, and Joe was just one of the ones who did.
‘He was now the “big man” – the undefeated champion – and I’m sure the cocaine went along with that.
‘Sometimes I’d see him having a line with friends, using a rolled-up note on a table top. Other times I wouldn’t see him, but could tell – the way he acted, really. It worried me and I’d nag him to stop but it would end in a row.’
Mostly, she began to dread the following days, when Joe would be particularly difficult to live with. ‘He’d be really moody, over-the-top argumentative, really hard work.’
But it quickly became what Jo-Emma describes as a ‘horrible spiral’. She says: ‘It became a normal night out for him, drinking and some coke with the boys.
‘Even just going out for a pint on a weekday it would happen. He’d be doing it in the toilets of whatever pub he’d be in.
‘I’d say, why don’t you just try and do a full week or two without doing it, but he couldn’t. He was surrounded by people who thought the sun shone out of his backside and my nagging didn’t go down well.
‘When there were parties in our house and there were lots of people there, I wouldn’t always be watching him so I wouldn’t necessarily see it. He’d have it in the games room and would snort it off the bar or the pool table.
‘I couldn’t say how much he was taking in a night or where he’d get it from. He kept that hidden from me.’
Worryingly, she believes he had begun using the drug secretly on his own. She would find him in the house, usually in the games room where he watched films and sport on TV, and confront him about it.
‘If you know someone, you can just tell. Someone on coke is more alert and chatty. He would be a bit nicer to me as well, more affectionate.
Couple: Joe and Kristina attend a gala dinner in London last month
‘I might not have seen him snorting it but I’d see it in his eyes. I could also smell it – it’s quite distinctive – and I’d say, “You’ve had some, haven’t you? What are you doing? You’re here on your own, you’re not even going out or anything.” But it just made him hide it more.’
Her concerns grew further when he developed a physical reaction to the drug. ‘Sometimes his face would swell after taking coke and I was worried. I searched on the internet and found that it can be an allergic reaction to cocaine and alcohol.’
Jo-Emma says his character had become ‘very Jekyll and Hyde’. She does not know whether this was specifically caused by his drug use, but she suspects it had an effect.
‘He would tell me after a cocaine session that he didn’t want to do it any more. He always had regrets.
‘Once, when I said to him he was taking too much and should address it, he blamed me. He said it was because of me he had it, which is really unfair.
‘Other times he’d say, “I’m far too good for you – I hope you know how lucky you are, I could have anybody.” But he would regret saying that the next day and would tell me I deserved better.
‘My mum told me I should leave him. But I still loved him, even though I had my doubts.’
In June last year, Joe found out he had a place on Strictly and Jo-Emma worried about what it might do to their relationship.
‘He was excited about what it could do for his career because people would see him in a different light. But I didn’t like the thought. It’s not the ideal situation you want your partner in. You hear about the affairs.’
The couple rented a flat in Hampstead, North London, for Joe to use while he was on the show. It was a test – if they could survive living apart, perhaps their relationship could be salvaged.
They spent a weekend there together in August, a week before the Strictly line-up was announced, which was ‘like a honeymoon’, Jo-Emma said.
But two days after Joe learned he was to be partnered with Kristina Rihanoff, he called Jo-Emma from Wales as she spent a few days at the flat by herself.
‘He said it wasn’t going to work and that we should just leave it. That was it. It was a short call.’
Jo-Emma fell to pieces. She says part of her believed their relationship could be saved. But when pictures appeared later that week of Joe and Kristina hugging and kissing in the street after rehearsals, she knew there was no going back.
‘It was awful seeing those pictures – it really hurt,’ she says.
Joe left her messages to apologise for the media attention, but she ignored them. ‘I think he loved it, and I’m sure he was involved in making sure it happened. This was all about him becoming a superstar, after all.
‘I was in bits. I thought, “God, Joe, after all that time we spent together?” Those pictures were just in the street, not taken professionally. That would have been easier. It’s the fame game and that’s what he felt he had to do. I was in tears all the time and it makes me want to cry now just thinking about it. Joe was everything I knew and I was absolutely devastated.’
Joe called Jo-Emma repeatedly, begging her to stay friends with him but, too hurt to talk, she ignored him. When she returned to Wales to collect some of her belongings, Joe pleaded with her again to stay in touch and to come and watch the show.
He was now the 'big man' - the undefeated champion - and I'm sure the cocaine went along with that
‘Then he turned nasty. He said if we couldn’t be friends, that changed things,’ says Jo-Emma.
‘He said if I ever spoke about him, he and his professional team had a plan to turn me into the most hated woman in Britain.
‘He phoned me the next day to apologise. But I was really shaken. Clearly he didn’t want anything getting in the way of his new career and I was a threat to that.’
Jo-Emma watched the show only once. Rather than upsetting her, it made her laugh. ‘I thought he’d be good, but he really wasn’t. It was like watching a stranger,’ she says.
Joe became the fifth celebrity to be voted off the show. Former judge Arlene Phillips claimed his off-screen romance with Kristina, who was dubbed the ‘Siberian Siren’, had led to them losing the public vote.
Despite refusing to comment during the show, Joe has now confirmed the romance, declaring that going on Strictly was the best decision of his life because it allowed him to meet Kristina. Meanwhile, Jo-Emma is the happiest she has ever been.
It would be easy for her to speak her mind about Kristina. But she has chosen to speak with restraint.
‘People told me Kristina didn’t want to be seen at the same parties as me and I thought, who’s the insecure one here? How dare she? I’ve never said anything nasty about her, even though I could have done. But I don’t want to get into that.
‘There was a long time I couldn’t even talk about this without crying. Being with Joe was a big chunk of my life. But I’ve got a whole new life now and I’m very happy.’
Seeing the revelations about Joe’s drug abuse has also reinforced this. ‘Maybe it all being out in the open means he’ll get treated. I hope so. I’m just glad I’m not in a negative relationship any more.’
She is meeting with producers and directors about film parts and has been talking about landing a sports-presenting role. She is also running the London Marathon later this month for Breakthrough Breast Cancer in tribute to her grandmother, who has battled the disease.
Recently she was pictured with England rugby star James Haskell. But she is coy when asked about their relationship.
‘It’s only been two dates. Having a champion boxer as an ex-boyfriend really puts a lot of men off, funnily enough. It’s taken a long time and I’m only now getting back on my feet. I lost my home and Joe used to be the centre of my life.
‘It’s right we’re not together now and I genuinely wish him luck.’
A spokesman for Calzaghe said: ‘Joe finds it sad that an ex-partner, whom he continues to look after generously, should jump on this particular bandwagon.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-1263415/Joe-Calzaghes-cocaine-jealousy-betrayal-The-dark-secrets-world-champion-boxer-ex-girlfriend.html#ixzz0kFnrYX0s
