Vanessa Perroncel used to date Lee from Steps!

Oooh this gets even better! John Terry’s mistress, Vanessa Perroncel used to date Lee Latchford Evans whilst he was in pop band Steps!!!

Lee has spoken for the first time about his relationship with Vanessa and stated she was always after fame and money!

Lee said: “Vanessa is the type that likes to be looked after, to be treated well. You have to have money to be able to do that. That’s what she always wanted. That’s what she’s about.

“She was always going to move on to bigger fish. I gave her a taste of celebrity and she wanted more. Footballers earn hundreds of thousands a week. She knew how to climb the ranks.

“She was always going to be with someone who could look after her and who was very good at what they do.

“She found that with me and she’s found that with other people.”

Lee and Vanessa first met backstage at a Smash Hits Poll Winners Party in 1999.

He said: “She’s obviously a very beautiful girl. We got chatting about her modelling, I asked if she liked our act and we just hit it off.

“I called her about a week later and asked her out on a date. We met in Leicester Square and watched a movie. I remember she was wearing a big silver Puffa jacket.

“Me being me I was probably late which is never a good start is it?

“It didn’t spark, it took a while before we became an item. It wasn’t love at first sight.”

Steps were at the height of their fame and Lee got recognised wherever he went. He took Vanessa to high-profile London premieres, including The Beach and Ice Age, where they were snapped together on the red carpet. On one occasion they were chased down the street by 40 paparazzi, which Lee admitted was “crazy”.

He said: “I have never quite experienced the hysteria of the paparazzi as on that day. She didn’t know what to do with herself.”

He said: “She was a typical girly girl who liked to look good and loved nice shoes and clothes and nail varnish.

“I would buy her handbags and clothes for her birthday or Christmas. She liked Prada.”

Lee said he had no doubt Vanessa knew exactly what she wanted and went for it. He told how she enjoyed the attention that came with being linked to a pop star and admitted he would never know whether she used him for the fame. Lee said: “I believe she would always have ended up with someone that was successful and would be able to look after her.

Asked whether she was calculating enough to use him to get noticed, he said wryly: “Let’s not be naive. If someone is out there with a celebrity on her arm, of course they’ll get spotted.

“I would like to think I was not used but I am not naive enough to say fame didn’t play a part.

“We did live in a bubble 24/7. We were living the high life. Steps were very successful and I got recognised wherever I went.

“Vanessa was a model. She has done shoots and campaigns. She knows what it’s like to have her picture taken and be in the limelight.

“She was used to that scene. It was her social circle. She would always be at these glamorous events. If she wanted to be looked after that’s her goal and that’s what she wants.”

Lee said that he did love her but added: “Being in love is a very different question.

“What I was actually in love with was the lifestyle. I had the gorgeous model on my arm, picked up by limousines every day.

“I came from a very working class background. I was loving a life you only read about.

“But our relationship was not the be all and end all. I knew she wasn’t the right one for me. We were not going to get married and have kids.”

Looks like Vanessa made the move from pop star to footballer, as she has now been associated with up to six footballers in the past year alone! Nice girl!!