TV footie pundit Jermain Defoe has sparked fears his marriage is in trouble after spending Christmas on the Caribbean island of St Lucia while his wife Donna stayed home in Glasgow.
The former Spurs and West Ham star, 40, has been pictured without his wedding ring while Donna, also 40, has reverted to her maiden name of Tierney on social media and has unfollowed her hubby.
Neither of them has posted about each other on social media for eight weeks.
Both have removed Instagram images of the OK! magazine cover that featured their £200,000 wedding last June.
The Sun on Sunday revealed Defoe had begged a nurse for sex just a month after getting married.
A source said: “The marriage seems to be in trouble. You would think they would want to spend their first Christmas together as husband and wife but they haven’t so things aren’t looking at all good.”
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Defoe and Donna married at stately home Cliveden House, in Berkshire, in June last year.
The lavish bash featured across 14 pages as well as the cover of OK! magazine later that month.
Defoe said at the time: “This is my future, this is forever, this is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with.”
But in October, The Sun on Sunday revealed that Defoe had tried to lure a mum for a romp in the back of his Range Rover weeks after he wed.
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Donna has not been seen for some time at the couple’s £300,000 home in Glasgow and is believed to be staying with her parents nearby.
A neighbour said: “I haven’t seen her here for ages. I don’t think she’s living there any more.”
The couple were last pictured together eight weeks ago at a champagne bash for the former striker’s birthday.
Prior to that they would regularly gush about each other on their Instagram pages, with holiday snaps and loving posts about “Mr and Mrs Defoe”.
But for nearly two months there has been a noticeable silence. Defoe has only posted pictures of himself in St Lucia, without his wedding ring and with no mention of his wife.
One of his followers speculated: “Bro getting divorced already.”
Meanwhile, Donna has only posted pictures of herself and her family.
She wished her 8,000 followers “all the love and happiness in the world”, beneath a picture of her 12-year-old daughter unwrapping Christmas presents.
There was no mention of Defoe and one follower posted: “Are you and JD not together any more?”
Days later Donna suggested in an Instagram story that she was glad to see the back of 2022 — and was “looking ahead” to the New Year.
She also posted: “Some people will take you out of the rain and dry you off, some will stand with you and some will turn the rain into a hurricane.”
Defoe met Donna in January 2021 when he was playing for Rangers and she asked him for a signed football shirt for a charity do.
The pair hit it off and Defoe proposed at a Glasgow hotel seven months later.
He spelled out “Marry me” with lights in their penthouse suite, which he decorated with heart-shaped balloons and rose petals, and got down on one knee to pop the question.
Their wedding last June was attended by 360 guests, including former England stars Ledley King, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Carlton Cole.
The pair chose the swanky 376-acre Cliveden House for a three-day wedding extravaganza, after Defoe read that Meghan had stayed there on the eve of her marriage to Prince Harry.
Defoe wore a cream jacket, black trousers and a bow tie, and said his “eyes just started welling up” when he saw Donna approaching the altar.
Their first dance was to Luther Vandross’s Always and Forever.
The celebrations lasted until 7am and included fire-eaters, flamethrowers, a Caribbean buffet and a makeshift nightclub.
But within weeks of the wedding he was messaging a nurse and asking her to meet for sex.
The nurse, who we are not naming, claims that Defoe, who has been dogged by cheating rumours in the past, called her last month insisting she listen to what he had to say — but she quickly hung up.
She said of his marriage troubles: “Donna must have known what he was like when she got with him — surely she looked this man up. He was messaging me within days of getting married to her.
“As soon as I heard his voice on the phone last month I hung up. I’m so happy to be done and dusted with all of it.
“It doesn’t matter who he is or how much money he’s got, there’s no way I’d be in a relationship with a man like him.”
Defoe scored 20 goals in 57 games for England.
His career included spells at West Ham, Spurs, Rangers and Sunderland.
He retired in March last year and is now a youth academy coach and ambassador for Spurs. He also appeared as a pundit on Channel 4’s coverage of England’s matches last year.
His agents were approached for comment.
3 Lions goal ace to OBE honour
JERMAIN Defoe became famed for his goal-scoring exploits — and is now often a TV pundit.
And he has moved into coaching with youth players at his former club Tottenham, where he also works as an ambassador.
He scored 227 goals in 624 club matches in a career spanning 23 years from 1999 to 2022.
He also notched 20 goals in 57 England matches, including one at the 2010 World Cup.
The prolific striker played for a total of seven clubs — West Ham, Spurs, Portsmouth, Toronto FC, Sunderland, Bournemouth and Glasgow giants Rangers.
Defoe had a loan spell at Bournemouth before a £7million move to Spurs, where he enjoyed the most fruitful days of his career, in 2004.
In 2008, he switched to Portsmouth but was cup-tied so could not play in any of their matches en route to them lifting the FA Cup.
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He was awarded an OBE in 2018 for his charitable work with the Jermain Defoe Foundation.
While playing for Sunderland in 2016, he struck up a close friendship with six-year-old Bradley Lowery who had a debilitating form of cancer. Bradley passed away in 2017.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
