I’m A Celebrity star Danny Jones has been open about his lack of relationship with his estranged father, Alan.
However, now Alan has spoken out and revealed his hopes to mend his relationship with his son, almost two decades after separating from the family.
Alan, who has been following Danny on I’m A Celebrity, is hopeful of sharing wholesome father-son moments once the singer exits the jungle.
However, the McFly star is supposedly siding with his mother. Danny suffers from severe anxiety which was triggered when his father walked out on his family nearly two decades ago.
I’m A Celebrity star Danny Jones’ estranged father breaks silence
Alan, who was previously married to Danny’s mother Kathy, now lives in Spain with his wife Sharon. The father and son haven’t seen each other in 18 years, since Alan left his family in 2005.
The McFly star’s father is a radio DJ. Speaking to the Daily Mail from his radio station in L’Alfas del Pi, Alan touched upon his parched relationship with his son.
He revealed that he and his ex-wife Kathy grew apart when the kids left home in the early 2000s. “It should have been a time where the marriage got a bit closer, but it didn’t. I can’t explain why but it didn’t, so we had two very bad years, and in fact, Danny saw this with his sister and they wrote a song about it… and then I met Sharon and that was it,” he said.
While Alan and Sharon were friends at first, they grew closer and closer with time. The radio DJ revealed in his interview that he and his wife “became intimate” when McFly bandmates made a cameo on BBC1 medical drama Casualty.
Alan said: “It was the night that Danny was on Casualty, that was the night we actually got together. I was sitting in the pub watching on my own, then all the girls came in and we went into town afterwards and that was it.”
Danny was 19 when his father walked out on the family to start a new life with Sharon. The McFly star said he sought therapy to deal with the anxiety over the incident.
Father and son haven’t spoken in decades
Alan confessed that his and Kathy’s split caused further drift in the family and he hasn’t spoken to his kids since then.
“It was quite a bitter divorce that dragged on far too long. It could have been resolved a good few thousand pounds earlier. But hopefully one day we’ll have that pint, sooner rather than later, time’s getting on,” he said, making a hopeful plea for a post-jungle reunion.
Alan reportedly wasn’t a part of his daughter’s wedding last year. He also hasn’t met Danny and Georgia’s six-year-old son Cooper and wasn’t invited to their wedding in 2014.
Hinting at the reason behind their estrangement, the 72 year old thinks Danny’s love for his mother could also be making their reunion harder than it should be. This is because Alan reckons Danny’s mum would be “upset – and I don’t think he wants to do that, and I understand that”, he said.
He’s open to ‘repairing’ relationship with his son
Despite years of silence and distance between them, Danny’s father thinks he and his son had a “superb bond” in his childhood. And he has said the ball is now in Danny’s court. As a result, he is keeping his fingers crossed that “one day it’ll happen”.
The last time he shook hands with his son was 18 years ago. However, Alan is looking forward to wishing his son when he’s back from the jungle “whatever happens”.
I’m A Celebrity airs every night at 9pm on ITV1.
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