TO those closest to them, married couple Jlloyd and Emma Samuel lived the perfect life. With three healthy children, an array of flash cars and a sprawling countryside mansion - the footballer and his WAG seemed to have it all. But beneath the surface was an unthinkable truth that Emma only discovered when their 17-year relationship came to an abrupt end.
Jlloyd, a man who she presumed she knew through and through, had a second life she knew absolutely nothing about - and astonishingly, one which included a second wife. Emma, an interior designer once loved being married to a footballer, a man who was both charming and outgoing. “He was such a romantic,” Emma recalls.
“We had a real good understanding of what we wanted family life to be like.” Jlloyd, who grew up in Bow, East London , started his sporting career playing Sunday league football in the same team as Chelsea legend John Terry . He was signed professionally for the first time to Aston Villa aged 16 - but friends say he “never changed” after making it big.
He soon met Emma in a LOAF, a club in Manchester city centre, in 2001 and was reportedly head-over-heels from their first encounter. But the early days of their relationship was tainted by lies. Jlloyd led Emma to believe he was a 23-year-old estate agent, a facade which she believed to be true for the first six months of their relationship.
He eventually came clean, confessing he was in fact a footballer, and he was 19, two years younger than Emma. Em.
