The Apprentice star Tom Skinner has claimed his affair with Amy-Lucy O’Rourke was a ‘one-off’ and a ‘moment of madness’, but newly emerged Ring doorbell footage tells a very different story
Thomas Skinner is trying his best to downplay his affair as a short-lived ‘one-off’, but newly emerged Ring doorbell footage tells a very different story.
The salesman, who makes his Strictly Come Dancing debut this weekend, claims his dalliance with Amy-Lucy O’Rourke, 35, just weeks after his wedding to wife Sinead was a “moment of madness” and something he regretted almost immediately.
Skinner, who has three children with his wife, said over the weekend: “I’m just so lucky that she forgave me. When I told my wife, I fully understood if she were to never speak to me again. It just shows you that 10 minutes can just ruin your whole life.”
READ MORE: ‘Thomas Skinner told me I was the love of his life – but then I exposed his affair’READ MORE: Thomas Skinner labelled ‘wannabe’ by Big John fans amid cheating scandal
But Amy-Lucy disputes Skinner’s recollection and claims she was the one to call things off – much to Skinner’s annoyance – and was the one who told Sinead. The aesthetician and single mum alleges she began a fling with Skinner in the summer of 2022, just weeks after his May wedding.
She claims he told her at the time that his marriage was simply one of convenience. However, by July that year, Amy-Lucy discovered this wasn’t true and called off their affair.
She now alleges that Skinner, 34, didn’t take the break-up well and showed up at her doorstep demanding a conversation. In the footage captured by her Ring doorbell, Skinner can be seen lingering outside for a minute and a half, despite Amy-Lucy making it clear she doesn’t want to engage.
Skinner also seems to attempt to force his way into her home, but she prevents him. In a dramatic turn of events, she then steps out from the entrance of her house near Brentwood, Essex, to shatter the windscreen of his parked Mercedes 4×4.
In the footage obtained by the Daily Mail, Skinner is initially seen on her doorstep, gesticulating at the camera as he refuses to leave. He then yells up at an upstairs window, again insisting she open the door.
Amy-Lucy retorts, ‘Leave me alone and go away,’ but he continues to hammer on the door. She eventually opens the door and informs him that her son is asleep.
The mother-of-one insists she and Skinner acted like a couple in public, with Skinner often referring to her as his girlfriend and telling her his marriage to wife Sinead was nothing but a “relationship of convenience”.
But Skinner is adamant in his stance that his affair was a one-off event. He told The Sun on Sunday: “I had a fling, I suppose, it was nothing more than that, it was the one time, it was a mistake, then I woke up feeling absolutely terrible about it.”
The married couple were not arguing or having relationship troubles but it was “just me in a moment of madness”, Skinner said. The aftermath “was a very, very dark time”, he said, adding that his wife “never deserved that, she’s such a good person, without her I wouldn’t be where I am today – she made me”.
In a statement to the paper, a spokeswoman for Amy-Lucy said: “This has been an incredibly stressful chapter in her life. She did not have a fling with Mr Skinner, she had a relationship with him.”
The revelations about Skinner’s personal life come just days on from the dad-of-three apologising for picking up a journalist’s phone and walking out of a Strictly Come Dancing press event midway through.
He later said his departure from last week’s event was not related to the BBC dancing show, and claimed he did so because he had seen messages about his past on the reporter’s phone. Skinner was reported to have grabbed the phone and walked out after objecting to being recorded by a journalist.
