Jane McDonald says she was by no means in love together with her husband of eight years Henrik Brixen and ‘one of the best factor he ever did’ was go away her: ‘Everybody may see it, I used to be the one one who did not’

Jane McDonald has confessed that she was never in love with her ex-husband Henrik Brixen, and says his decision to end their marriage was ‘the best thing he ever did.’

The singer, 62, was married to the Danish ship plumbing engineer for eight years, with him going on to become her manager during their relationship.

But despite the lengthy relationship, Jane has shared that she was ‘the only one’ who didn’t realise she had no feelings for her ex-husband.

She noted that while he was her manager, Henrik was reluctant to ‘play the game’ in the music industry.

Following her split from Henrik in 2003, Jane rekindled a relationship with her teenage sweetheart Eddie Rothe, but he sadly died of lung cancer in 2021.

Jane shared insight into her marriage to Henrik while reflecting on her Las Vegas shows in 2001. 

She told Jessie and Lennie Ware on the Table Manners podcast: ‘It’s really strange this, because I should have had the best time of my life. I just got to Vegas, but I knew my marriage was on the brink.’

Calling Henrik a ‘nice guy,’ the singer said they had tied the knot ‘very publicly,’ but admitted she wasn’t ‘in love’ with him.

The former Loose Women star said: ‘Oh no, I really wasn’t, everybody could see it and was going, that’s not gonna last. I was the only one who didn’t see it. But he was a great guy, and he did his best, you know.’

As Jessie asked whether her ex-husband was a ‘good manager’, Jane said: ‘He was, he was in certain things. He was brilliant, but he was very Danish and didn’t understand that it’s all a game, our business, and you have to play it.

‘I was a club artist, a cruise ship singer, which was like, we don’t allow this in our industry. And nobody thought for one minute that I would go straight to number one with that album, nobody. 

‘Not even the record company. It was a shock to everybody. And then my tour sold out massively, which was, you know, another learning curve. 

‘And I was learning the business with Henrik (her husband and manager at the time) along the way. So it was like, hang on a minute. This is not tallying up [..] but it’s a game, and you have to play it. 

‘And then I got dropped from my labels, and I thought, how hard can this be? So I did it all myself.

‘You don’t realise that, every artist thinks they need a record company, and you don’t. You just need a bit of money. 

‘So if you’ve got a backer or a good bank like I had, you know, they’ll just say, Yeah, off you go. 

‘I put my house up more times to fund, because I had no kids, it didn’t matter to me.

‘My mother would live wherever I was. So I put my house up all the time to fund the tours and the albums, and I just kept going and building the fan base. 

‘And my fans are the best in the world. And they stood with me. So it’s only been the last sort of five years that I’ve finally been able to breathe now, but I never gave up. And I think that’s the thing. 

‘I think so many people get frightened, lose a lot of money, and think this is not for me. I can’t stand this. Or they get so disillusioned with the industry, you’ve just got to play it or do it a different way.’

Jane had previously shared in her 2019 autobiography that she started to feel ‘lonely’ in her marriage, after Henrik ruled out the prospect of having children.

She wrote: ‘Henrik and I once talked about having children but there wasn’t room for babies in his plans for me. I began to feel lonely in my marriage.

‘Your manager is your boss and tells you what to do, what to wear and who to be, so our relationship changed. I loved him with all my heart but felt he’d stopped looking at me as a wife. I became a product.

‘Eventually, I came to the devastating conclusion that I really did have nothing left. I told Henrik, ”I’m firing you as my manager.”’

Four years after partner Eddie’s death, Jane recently shared that ‘not a day goes by where she doesn’t think of him.’

The singer and TV presenter, who heartbreakingly lost her partner Eddie to lung cancer in 2021, shared that she misses him every day as she opened up on dealing with grief and the loss of her beloved partner. 

When asked if she misses having someone to share life with, Jane told Bella Magazine: ‘Of course I do. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t think of (Eddie), talk of him – It’s awful. 

She continued: ‘I’m not going to butter this up in any way: grief stays with you all the time, but what you have to do is sit it beside joy. 

‘You have to bring as much joy into your life as humanly possible, so that you feel more joy than the grief. I’m just about level now.’ 

Opening up about her loss and choosing to stay positive, Jane shared that before she begins her day, she practices a mantra and chooses to always go down the positive route.

Jane had known The Searchers star Eddie since they were teenagers, but they only reconnected in the early noughties, before getting engaged in 2008.