Rachel Stevens makes ‘difficult decision’ to split from childhood sweetheart Alex Bourne

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Rachel Stevens has separated from her husband Alex Bourne after 12 years of marriage.

The former S Club 7 star revealed the news to her 280,000 Instagram followers on Friday (1 July).

Stevens, 44, said that she and Bourne are planning to co-parent their daughters, 11-year-old Amelie and eight-year-old Minnie.

In a statement posted to her Instagram Stories, Stevens wrote: “I just wanted to share with you all that after time and consideration, the difficult decision has been made fro Alex and I to separate.

“While we are no longer partners in marriage, we will remain partners in parenthood to our beautiful girls and continue with love and respect for each other.

“I feel so incredibly grateful for the life we built together and will now continue to be focused on moving forward united as a family.”

Stevens and Bourne married in August 2009 at Claridge’s in London. The singer walked down the aisle to the S Club 7 hit, “Never Had A Dream Come True”.

Their split comes just a month before they were due to celebrate their 13^th wedding anniversary.

The pair knew each other as children and dated briefly when they were both 12 years old. They reunited later in life.

Last month, Stevens recalled the experience of meeting Bourne again as adults to Roxie Nafousi on her The Moments That Made Me podcast.

She said: “We were childhood sweethearts. We went out with each other when we were 12, we met at youth club and I was besotted with him. We went out for probably about four weeks and when you’re that age that was a really long time.”

The pair went on dates at the age of 16 and then again at 18, and did not meet again until they were in their late twenties.

However, Stevens said it wasn’t until their relationships with other people ended that they “rekindled our relationship again”.