‘My ego was so inflated it had left the planet’: Martin Kemp on ditching rock ‘n’ roll excesses and why hitting rock-bottom made his marriage bulletproof
His 28-year marriage to Shirlie Holliman is one of the most enduring relationships in showbiz, so what's their secret?
MARTIN Kemp is trying extremely hard to remember the date of his wedding anniversary.
“Erm…” he stutters and then bursts out laughing. “I’ll have to check on that! It’s not the kind of information I keep on me every day.”
Fortunately, what he lacks in memory skills, he more than makes up for in overall husband brownie points.
He’s still besotted with his wife of 28 years Shirlie Holliman, best-known as the blonde half of pop star duo and Wham! backing singers Pepsi & Shirlie.
Theirs is widely acknowledged as one of the most enduring relationships in showbiz, even surviving the hedonistic 1980s when Martin was one-fifth of multi-million-record-selling band Spandau Ballet.
So what’s their secret?
“I’m just lucky I found someone to fall in love with who is also my best friend,” he says.
“I think if there is a secret, maybe you have to look after the friendship part just as much as the romance.”
Love blossomed between them in 1982 when Martin, now 54, saw Shirlie perform Wham Rap! on Top of The Pops.
He admits with a cheeky grin that he was instantly smitten by the blonde bombshell in the “white dress with a big split up the side.”
At that point, Spandau – consisting of Martin’s older brother and guitarist Gary, frontman Tony Hadley, saxophone player Steve Norman and drummer John Keeble – had notched up three Top 10 singles.
They were one of the biggest bands in the UK and just months away from releasing iconic hit Gold.
They had the world at their feet – and a constant stream of groupies completely infatuated by them.
But from that moment, Martin only had eyes for Shirlie.
Make no mistake, he partied like a rock star with Spandau, who infamously bought up a whole floor of a hotel on tour – “with a party room at the end” – and had wild drinking sessions that carried on for days.
But a fling with one of his many fans was one thing Martin never checked off his rock ‘n’ roll to-do list.
“I always think there are certain things you would never do to hurt your best friend [if he was] another bloke, so why would you do it to your wife?” he says.
“If you look after the friendship, the love will follow. We love each other as much today as we did in 1982.”
But surely there was a hell of a lot of temptation?
“Of course!” he laughs.
“Listen, I found someone who I love and I’m lucky to still be with her. I’m lucky she is still with me!”
With his salt-and-pepper hair, piercing blue eyes and self-assured swagger, Martin is the archetypal silver fox and still has legions of devoted female fans.
A busy work schedule has temporarily halted his daily workout, which normally consists of cardio, weights and stretches.
But when he whips off his shirt during our shoot, it’s a remarkably impressive bod for a man in his mid-50s.
However, any compliments are met with a semi-embarrassed: “Oh, thank you for saying that.”
He acknowledges that women have it harder than men when it comes to ageing.
“Men do have an easier time getting older. I don’t know why that is,” he says.
“I do think women beat themselves up about it too much. By a certain age it’s not all about looks, it’s about the person you have become.”
Despite the couple’s devotion to one another, Martin and Shirlie’s happy marriage hasn’t been without its drama.
In 1995, their relationship was tested to the limit when it was discovered that Martin had not one but two brain tumours.
The news rocked their world and that of the whole Kemp family, which includes their two children, photographer daughter Harleymoon, now 26, and Capital FM DJ Roman, 23.
“Shirlie felt a lump when she was stroking my head one day. It wasn’t that big, but then it started to grow,” Martin recalls.
“She had a suspicion about it from the start, because you don’t have a lump grow out your head without there being something underneath it. A month later, I was filming [American sci-fi TV show] The Outer Limits and my character needed to wear a bald cap. When I put it over my head, I realised how big the lump had got, as it was sticking out.
“Shirlie came with me to the doctor. When I was told the news I went quiet, as I couldn’t take in what was being said. Fortunately they were benign, and it’s something I will be forever grateful to hear. Within 24 hours I was in the hospital being operated on, and they were cutting away at the giant tumour in my head.
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“When I think what we went through, everything else is relatively tiny [in comparison]. It puts things into a very strange perspective.”
The nine-hour operation in 1995 saw Martin have half his skull removed to get to one of the tumours, which was the size of a squashed grapefruit. He now has a metal plate in its place.
Doctors decided to temporarily leave the second tumour in his brain because it was so deeply embedded.
“I was in the middle of a car crash and I didn’t know what was going on,” Martin says.
“It was a much tougher experience for my family than it was for me. They would come round the edge of my hospital bed every day in tears and see me in a terrible state.
“Shirlie was my pillar of strength, and still is. I was thoroughly depressed and was as low as you could get. You lose everything – your confidence and the person you are. It was the darkest time of my life. I thought I was going mad as my brain didn’t work the way it did before,” he says quietly.
Not only did Martin struggle to accept what he was going through, he was also desperately trying to keep the second tumour a secret from the outside world for fear of future bosses ruling him out as unemployable.
On top of that, he had to learn to walk again, when even raising himself into a sitting position left him in excruciating pain, and had lost the sight in one eye.
“It was a waiting game for the bruising on my brain to go down, and hospital staff helped me to walk again over a couple of months,” he says.
Two years later, Martin had to go through it all again.
In 1997, doctors decided the second tumour, “a ticking time bomb”, had grown to a size where they could no longer delay removing it. However, this would require them to cut through his brain, something Martin says would have caused “loads of collateral damage”.
Again, Shirlie came to his rescue.
“Because of the way they had to cut it out, I was told I would lose some of my movements here and there. Shirlie refused to accept it,” Martin explains.
“She hunted around the world and came across an American doctor called Professor Black who had a new machine that could treat the tumour with radiation and was non-invasive. There were only two of these machines in the world, and fortunately one of them
was half an hour from my house, at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London.
“I had one treatment of radiation, and six months later the tumour started to die. It had worked.”
It’s little wonder Martin credits Shirlie, 54, and his family with pulling him back from the brink.
Then a phone call from EastEnders bosses in 1998, just months after his second treatment, played a big part in rebuilding his confidence. He was asked to take on the role of rogue businessman and all-round bad guy Steve Owen.
“I didn’t know whether I could remember lines because my brain was so messed up, so I was winging it at first,” Martin says.
“I nicked Steve’s confidence and he got me back on track. It was perfect timing.”
It was his wife who realised that Martin, who famously played Reggie Kray in 1990 movie The Krays, was struggling to come to terms with what was happening. Refusing to seek help, he was “tricked into counselling sessions”.
Shirlie arranged for him to have a massage twice-weekly, omitting to tell him the “masseuse” was actually a counsellor.
“There’s a big difference between crying to someone you don’t know and telling your family about your problems,” Martin says.
“You can’t really do that because you want to be strong for them. Once I realised the release I was getting from the sessions, you couldn’t keep me away! I sat there for six months crying my eyes out and telling all these anecdotes about my life. I realised what had been going
on after a few weeks and felt so grateful to Shirlie. It was one of the best things I ever did.”
After being given the all-clear, Martin has a relatively clean bill of health. But as a side effect, he suffers from epilepsy, which is controlled with daily drugs.
He also overhauled his lifestyle – in came regular gym sessions and healthy food, and out went booze and the big 1980s ego.
“When I look back now, it’s like looking at a different person. There were times that the ego was so inflated, it had left the planet,” he says.
“We wasted so much money, but I enjoyed every minute of it.”
It’s this life experience that Martin can now pass on to his kids – in particular his rising star of a son Roman, who has the Monday to Thursday evening and Sunday morning shows on Capital FM, is besties with Justin Bieber, and has asked pop babe Selena Gomez on a date.
And Martin is proudest of the fact that he’s not opened one single door for him.
“He’s on a career rocket. I always told my kids to try to turn their hobbies into their job, because not only does it make you happy, it keeps you young.”
Nowadays, Martin prefers the quieter life.
Most of his free time is spent with Shirlie in their Hertfordshire mansion – both kids have moved to London, but visit every few weeks.
Occasionally they invite round celeb pals, including a certain George Michael.
Martin admits to often taking a step back because of the attention when he does surface, but that doesn’t mean a retreat from showbiz altogether.
After a foray into the Celebrity Big Brother house in 2012, when he finished third, he has since appeared in Birds of A Feather, toured the country in a one-man Q&A theatre show, and has three films and a part in Father Brown in the pipeline.
He’s also signed up to cover Graham Norton’s summer break from his BBC Radio 2 show alongside co-host Fearne Cotton.
But one job that hasn’t made it into his forward planner is another reunion with his old band mates.
In 2014, they finally managed to bury one of pop’s most bitter feuds – the small matter of a court case that divided the band in two.
In 1999, Tony, Steve and John sued for royalties from the hits Gary had written.
Gary denied their claims that there had been an agreement to share the proceeds, and went on to win the case.
Fifteen feuding years later, the band released their documentary-film Soul Boys of The Western World, a greatest hits album complete with new material, and embarked on a world tour.
But Martin, who managed not to pick sides during the painful divide, hints at a new disharmony.
When asked if there will be another reunion, he replies: “I don’t know. I would say yes, because I love Spandau and always have. It’s where my heart is, but there’s more than just me in the band. There are other people who don’t look at it in the same way.
“I love being in the band, being with my brother and travelling the world, because I know what it means to the people who watch it.
“But if it’s not to be, there is other stuff that means just as much to me,” he adds.
“Listen, that’s how life is.”
Listen to Martin and Fearne on BBC Radio 2, 10am–1pm, from July 9.
