Vinnie Jones finds love again - five years after death of his beloved Tanya: Football's reformed hardman, 59, pays tribute to 'fantastic' new partner 'Blondie', the loyal PA Emma Ford who charmed viewers by bossing him about in his Discovery+ farm series

Vinnie Jones has found love with his PA, the football hardman turned actor has revealed, five years after the death of his wife Tanya.

The 59-year-old star has said he is in a 'fantastic' relationship with new partner Emma Ford, who he affectionately calls 'Blondie' and is a former TV reporter, DJ and event manager who like him has also given up alcohol.

Vinnie, who has returned to acting as the star of Netflix's The Gentleman, has spoken of how Emma has 'calmed' him down after years hard drinking and depression left him 'rotting inside'.

Emma, a former PA to Mick Jones from The Clash who also worked as a showbiz reporter on Hollywood red carpets, had returned to the UK after years spent working and partying hard in LA. 

The new couple were brought together by the pandemic and Vinnie's farm in West Sussex - and she also became a star of the documentary series about his life that aired on Discovery+ last November.

Ms Ford, loved by viewers as Vinnie's patient and charming PA with a neat blonde pixie hair cut, has also quit drinking. 

Vinnie has admitted today that he will never get over the death of his wife Tanya, 53, in 2019 at their LA home following a six-year battle with skin cancer. But he said that his new love and happiness shows that a 'flower can grow and and bloom' from the darkest of times.

He said: 'Moving forwards, we meet other people that we are fond of and we fall in love with and vice versa. Maybe she's calmed me down a little bit. Maybe she brings a different perspective to it all for me.'

Speaking to the Mirror, he admitted he had found love again with Emma.   

'You know, after four months, four years, five years, 10 years, you just keep moving forwards, the grief is always going to be in there', the star of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels said.

But he added: 'It's how other things can control it. It's how much the flower can grow and and bloom. I think, for me, grief was always black and grey, but it doesn't have to be. It can be colours and happy memories'.

Emma has worked for the former Wimbledon footballer and was often shown being a voice of reason the show on Vinnie Jones in the Country. 

One minute she was shown helping him doing the paperwork for his new Bentley - and the next intervening to help has her boss managed construction projects.

But rumours of their romance began when they were seen with Vinnie's family enjoying a pub lunch just after Christmas this year.

It marks a new happy chapter for Vinnie, after the great tragedy of losing Tanya. 

Her health problems began when her heart had struggled while giving birth to her daughter at age 21. 

She was saved after being given a heart transplant, using the heart of a 14-year-old German boy. She later went on to become one of the longest-surviving heart recipients. 

Tragically it was cancer that ultimately killed Tanya. She had discovered her cancer had returned and spread to her brain in a phone call on Christmas Eve while the couple were celebrating with 15 family members in Palm Springs in 2018.

Jones said it was the moment they realised 'it's beat us' but Tanya had been determined to have 'the best Christmas ever' so kept it a secret from everyone.

'The bravery of her is unfathomable,' Jones added. 'All's she wanted to do was please people.'

She died aged 53 in their Hollywood home on July 6 2019 following a six-year battle with cancer.

At around midnight on the night Tanya died, Jones was sitting outside in the darkness, and he said: 'We always had this thing, Tans and I - when I was away I'd throw her a kiss and she'd catch it.

'There was a star, very close and not very high. So I said: 'Is that you, babe?' Nothing. I went inside but thought... 'I didn't throw the kiss'. So I went back out, threw the kiss and the light went whoosh!' I swear that happened.'

Since her death Vinnie Jones - who is now 11 years sober - has been open about his grief and become a mental health advocate.

Jones has encouraged others to go sober, branding alcohol 'the worst drug on the planet' and telling the sober-curious 'if I can quit, believe me; you can and your life will be a million per cent better. I guarantee it.' 

Speaking about his addiction earlier this month, he told GQ: 'I was a party alcoholic. I'd do it to be a laugh – it was like inviting the fucking court jester. I'd be really funny and then there was a point where it levelled and came back the other way. I don't think alcohol was my hook, I think it was the sugar.

'The sugar got me to a fucking place, but once the alcohol kicked in, I was kind of paranoid. I was very defensive if someone was negative towards me.'

Opening up on the loss of his wife, Jones said he remained 'broken' inside and 'struggles to comprehend' going to bed on his own.

He copes with his grief by throwing himself into work and seeking help from a psychologist in a bid to stop him 'drowning' in his own despair. 

'[Grief] is a ghost, it's a blanket. It wraps around you and it pulls you down. You don't know when it's going to happen, why it happens. It just happens,' he told Stuff.

'You've got to try and get your head above water, breathe in as long as you can because you know you're going to be pulled under again.

'You got to give people what they want, or you f*****g drown. It's f*****g exhausting [Sometimes I want to] build a 50 foot wall around to keep everybody out and keep me in... 

'My spirit may be broken inside, but I think I've got enough knowledge and enough experience to cope with it.'

The actor previously wrote a book about his experiences , Lost Without You: Loving And Losing Tanya.

'Losing Tanya has been the worst thing that's ever happened to me and her family and friends, but I don't want her loss to be in vain', he said previously. 

Once football's most notorious hardman, famous for grabbing Paul Gascoigne by the genitals, he reinvented himself as and actor and swapped the football pitch for a life in Hollywood to play bad guys and thugs on the silver screen. 

Adding another string to his bow, Jones has also become the latest champion for the farming industry, starring in a new documentary series dubbed the 'next Clarkson's Farm'. Vinnie Jones: In the Country follows his new life on a sprawling 147-acre plot on a farm in Petworth, West Sussex.

Yesterday it was reported that the footballer-turned-actor was offered big bucks to star on the latest production of the Only Fools and Horses musical on the West End.

The lucrative offer comes after Jones received 'rave reviews across the board' for his role in Netflix's The Gentleman.

But three decades ago, the thought of the former Chelsea star singing and dancing on stage in front of a crowd of people would have been laughed off as a ludicrous suggestion.