‘Life isn’t perfect, but I’m happy’: Jill Halfpenny reflects on finding love again after years of ‘pain and tears’ following the devastating sudden deaths of her father and her partner

Jill Halfpenny has reflected on finding love again after years of ‘pain and tears’ following the devastating sudden deaths of her partner and father.

Handsome marketing executive Ian McAllister, 48, has brought joy back into the life of the former Strictly winner following the tragic death of her partner Matt Janes from a heart attack in 2017.

It wasn’t her first experience of grief as her father Colin died aged 36 after also suffering a heart attack during a game of five-a-side football. She was just four. 

The actress, 50, revealed she had found love again with Ian in 2023 in her memoir, A Life Reimagined, which was released in 2024.

Now speaking to The Mirror she has told how she is finally in a good place with her new relationship after the tough times.

She said: ‘You think about all of the years and all the pain and the tears and then suddenly I’m here today and I feel good.

‘Life isn’t perfect, but I’m happy to be where I’m at. Life is random. I lost my dad and then I lost my partner. It’s just a natural cycle of life. For some reason we have it in our heads that we should all live to a ripe old age, but some of us don’t. 

‘It’s not that it’s ok, but there’s no comfort for me in being angry or wishing it was different. The only comfort for me is acceptance.’

She shared her experiences of loss in her memoir A Life Reimagined which she said she did because she didn’t want to ‘run away from her grief’.

Jill said that on the whole most people don’t talk enough about the fact that we will all lose people close to us one day.

Recently Jill revealed that the sudden death of her partner Matt was ‘the hardest thing she’s ever gone through’.

Discussing her grief in the wake of Matt’s death, Jill described it was ‘all-consuming,’ adding she realised it can make her feel ‘desperately lonely’ due to the taboo around the subject.

She shared that Matt’s passing led her to process some of the feelings around her father’s death that she hadn’t come to terms with as a child, adding she learned she had to ‘patient’ with her grief.

Jill had previously shared she first learned of Matt’s passing after he failed to return home from an exercise class, and ran to the gym to find him lying on the ground, where attempts to revive him failed. 

She said: ‘I think that people very understandably focus on how hard it is and how difficult it is, which it is – there’s no argument for me about that at all. It is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through – but I think what people maybe don’t talk about as much is the resilience that it can give you.

Describing her own struggles with grief, Jill told Yahoo UK’s Unapologetically series: ‘I think the way I’ve heard it described is that the stone, the grief, is so big and so spiky and so all-consuming that there’s only room for the stone. 

‘And you just think, ”This is it. This is how I’ll feel forever. This is so completely consuming my body, there’s nothing else I can feel all the time.” And as we heal, and as we talk, and as we communicate, and as we connect, then the space around the stone starts to get a bit bigger. 

‘I don’t think the stone necessarily gets smaller; I think the space around it does. Tiny, incremental wins happen, and then you go to bed that night, and you think, ”Oh, maybe things are going to be alright.”

Jill had previously shared that Matt had given her permission to date again during a heartwarming conversation before his death.

Speaking on Lorraine in 2024, she said: ‘Yeah we were on the sofa one night and he said, ‘If something were to happen to me I would really like you to find someone else and be happy’. 

‘It was a disturbing conversation as there was something very urgent and direct about the way he was speaking to me, and I saw something in his eyes and I panicked.

‘My mum and dad had actually had a similar conversation with my dad two days before he died so it was all very familiar to me and I panicked.’

Reflecting, she added: ‘But now I can look back at the conversation and think he was given me a sign.’

Jill was previously married to actor Craig Conway from 2007-2010 and they are parents to 17-year-old son Henry.

She found love again with boyfriend Ian, who has been her ‘cheerleader’ as she processes her grief.

‘It sounds so cheesy, but I think Ian and I met at the perfect time,’ she has previously said.

‘After Matt died, I didn’t know if I’d ever meet anyone again, but Ian is my cheerleader – I know I’ve met somebody who I love and who loves me.’