The couple had discussed having a child together before they separated, while struggling with grief after losing Azaylia to cancer in April 2021.

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Yet now Ashley has said he is having a baby boy next month with a friend he has known since he was 18.

It has shattered Safiyya’s dream of them having a family together.

In a heartbreaking interview with The Sun on Sunday, Safiyya, 36, says: “I don’t know why he would ask to have another baby with me knowing he’s sleeping with someone else.

“When he asked me, it was the moment I’d been waiting for.

“I sighed with relief that we could reunite and have a family again. It was at Azaylia’s garden, in front of our daughter, such a precious, safe space for us.

“He said, ‘I don’t want another baby with another woman’, and asked if we could have one together.

“I couldn’t speak, the tears were rolling down my face.

“Over the coming weeks I then waited for him to say, ‘Shall we get back together’. I truly thought he would, I thought he was just taking things step by step.

“But then, out of the blue, he told me he was having a child with someone else.

“It was like a hurricane had hit me. I am shocked.”

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‘I am devastated’

Ex-footballer Ashley, 33, one of the stars of ITV’s The Real Full Monty: Jingle Balls this week, did an interview saying Safiyya had congratulated him.

He also told The Sun on Sunday of his joy at being a dad again.

Sobbing and wiping away tears, Safiyya admits: “How can I congratulate him when I’m in so much pain?

“Knowing my child has a sibling that isn’t related to me has shattered my dreams of a future with a full sibling, of that family.

“I feel embarrassed. I am speaking out because I need to stop sugar-coating stuff that’s painful to me. I am devastated.

“Because he hasn’t named this woman I’ve had thousands and thousands of messages with people thinking it is me, congratulating me.”

Azaylia was just eight weeks old when she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukaemia and tumours on her lungs, stomach and kidneys.

Former Coventry City winger Ashley and Safiyya, founders of The Azaylia Foundation, raised more than £1.5million to fund her specialist treatment.

She was given several rounds of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant at Birmingham Children’s Hospital but died at eight months.

Her parents struggled to cope. Ashley turned to alcohol and fundraising challenges to numb his pain and Safiyya constantly put his needs first while craving both affection and love from him.

Pulling at her top, with tears again rolling down her face, she admits: “I was walking through hell and needed affection, I didn’t get that from Ashley.

“I really wanted him but he was busy dealing with his grief. I was continuously trying to save him and look after him while drowning myself.”

She walked on eggshells around him so as not to “antagonise him”.
Safiyya clearly still tries to protect him but admits: “I had to be delicate around him.

“He was drinking heavily. Not every day, but often. It was whisky, numbing everything out. He sometimes wouldn’t come home and he didn’t come to bed, he slept on the sofa.

“We didn’t argue but it was as if he’d cut off from me. I was always trying to save him, suffocating him with kindness.

“I put him first while there were times I struggled. I didn’t ask him for support, help. I was saving myself the embarrassment and pain.

Before the trauma he was loving and caring. But he became dedicated to his own needs.

There were times when I actually thought, ‘I want to be with her’. I was desperate, I saw no purpose on Earth.

“I would be in my car and just look up at the sky. If there was a roundabout I’d think, ‘Let’s just keep driving, it doesn’t matter’.”

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Eventually Ashley, who appeared on reality shows Ex On The Beach and The Challenge, initiated the split.

Safiyya, now a mental health advocate, says: “He’d had a drink, it was quick and brutal. He said he couldn’t do it any more.”

He moved out of the family home in Nuneaton, Warwickshire.

They continued to work on the foundation together, which is committed to advancing early diagnosis and new treatment as well as supporting families whose children are fighting cancer.

Safiyya says: “He moved in with his aunt and later on I did, because his family had become my family and I was struggling on my own. We had separate rooms.

“We’d been friends before and we were again. I thought we would one day be a family again. I just thought he’s going through,  you know, turbulent times.”

They would often meet at their daughter’s “garden” at the cemetery and say prayers.

There, after he suggested a second baby, Safiyya waited for him to talk about their future as a couple.

She says: “I didn’t want a baby to think they’d been born because I wanted Azaylia. I wanted to fill a void. It had to be as a proper family.

“I know Azaylia would say to me, ‘Mummy, you deserve that family, that wholesome unit’.”

In June, Safiyya moved out of Ashley’s aunt’s house and bought her own home, believing the space would help.

She says: “We spoke nearly every day about the Foundation. We would hug like friends. I was waiting for him to say, ‘Let’s get back together, let’s have that baby’. I never asked him though. I didn’t want to push him away.”

Instead, he told her that another woman was pregnant though he wasn’t in a relationship with her.

Safiyya says: “He didn’t tell me who she was and, again, I would not ask.”

Breaking down again, she adds: “That’s the heartbreaking thing about it. Even when he told me, I put him first so he didn’t feel guilty for telling me. Inside I was screaming and crying.”

She also had to keep her dignity when the news broke online, with footage of Ashley talking about his new child.

Safiyya says: “I was preparing to present an award, sitting on a table with Little Mix singer Leigh-Anne Pinnock and sprinter Linford Christie.

“Somebody said there was footage of him online. I had no idea that was going to happen that day. I messaged him saying, ‘I’m just about to present an award. Like, seriously?’ He didn’t respond.”

The pair only spoke again three days later, as they put on a united front for the foundation at Birmingham Children’s Hospital.

Now Safiyya has booked in for therapy.

She says: “I went to Azaylia’s garden to tell her, like a mother sitting their child down to say, ‘This is what’s happening’.

“But I felt choked and I never want her to see Mummy crying. So I’ve not been able to do it. I tried, but I can’t. It can’t leave my mouth.”

Softly spoken Safiyya admits she will struggle to ever see Ashley’s new child.

She says: “As raw as that sounds, I find it difficult watching my own nephews, my own goddaughter play, as Azaylia should be playing with them.”

But Safiyya is finally looking to a brighter new year. She says: “My eyes have been opened. I’m going to stop being a shadow of myself and give myself the love and kindness I deserve.

“I hope by admitting this has brought me such embarrassment that it helps other women going through pain too.

“I have been an absolute mess. Crying for me, crying for Azaylia.

“But next year I am going to be strong. I am going to put myself first — for me and my daughter.”

Ashley told The Sun on Sunday last night: “Safiyya and I have shared an intense emotional journey together since losing Azaylia.

“When there are intense emotions involved, be that from loss, breakups or my recent baby announcement, recollection of events may vary.

“What has never varied is our mutual commitment to our daughter’s foundation, which has never been stronger.”