The tragic thing Mark Wright told me about James Argent’s now-doomed relationship – and how the TOWIE star’s friends reacted to his shock domestic violence charge: KATIE HIND

When I bumped into former The Only Way Is Essex (TOWIE) star Mark Wright last month, I asked how his long-time friend and co-star, James ‘Arg’ Argent was doing.

After all, Arg’s struggles with his ballooning weight and drug addiction have been well-documented in recent years.

But Mark, who was Arg’s wingman on ITV’s TOWIE when the show began in 2010, lit up as soon as I asked the question. He proudly gushed about how Arg had made a career out of his singing and was always jetting off around the world.

Mark regaled me with stories about the numerous double dates that he and his actress and Our Girl star wife Michelle Keegan had enjoyed with Arg and his then girlfriend of eight months Nicoline Artursson – a Swedish beauty queen.

Those close to Arg say that he was stunned that a woman as good-looking as Nicoline would be interested in him – and admitted to friends that he was ‘punching’ after meeting her in Marbella last year.

He first laid eyes on Nicoline when he was en route to a gig at Olivia’s, a restaurant on the island, which is owned by Mark’s cousin and TOWIE co-star Elliot Wright. Later speaking of the moment, Arg said he thought to himself: ‘Wow, beautiful.’

So, when it emerged on Tuesday that Arg, 37, had pleaded guilty to pushing Nicoline Artursson down the stairs outside her Spanish apartment last Monday in a fit of rage, his friends were understandably gobsmacked.

Arg admitted to charges of domestic violence and was handed a two-year restraining order – meaning he will be jailed if he attempts to contact Nicoline again. Speaking exclusively to the Mail he said: ‘I am devastated by what’s happened.’

Onlookers’ accounts of the incident are sickening. Arg was heard ‘yelling’ before forcing his now ex-girlfriend out of the door of her apartment, which caused her to fall down some steps before he ‘threw objects at her’. The pair had been enjoying a ‘romantic’ break near Fuengirola in Spain.

Nicoline looked ‘severely hurt’, said an eyewitness. They added: ‘The door of the house opened, and the man threw a women out and she fell down the steps, causing her to scream’. Arg ‘continued to throw things’ as Artursson ‘lay injured’ on the steps.

The TOWIE star was arrested shortly after the incident and was held in a police cell for several hours before being summoned to a nearby court.

I was once told Arg had hoped to marry Nicoline, and that he believed she was his ‘happy ever after’. How hollow those words ring now.

Today, I’m told Arg is heartbroken and full of remorse – and the couple’s nine-month relationship is very definitely over. For him, it is certainly a public relations disaster.

But it is not the first time that he has seriously upset a former partner.

In August 2020 I partied with TOWIE’s Gemma Collins on the Greek island of Mykonos where we were both holidaying. It was shortly after she had finally split from Arg following a tumultuous, on-again-off-again relationship.

She was heartbroken and bruised from the romance which, to her dismay, was played out in the public eye. She told me Arg had fat-shamed her, despite being overweight himself and that she had also suffered a miscarriage during the relationship. She also claimed he had been abusive towards her.

During our night out at the island’s Sea Satin restaurant, she shed tears as she told me this. Gemma thought she would never find happiness again, yet was sure that Arg would escape unscathed.

No one could have guessed things were so bad between them behind the scenes. I had been around Arg on the showbiz party scene since the day TOWIE began 15 years ago.

Although he was never as handsome as his friend Mark Wright – and fellow celebrity journalists referred to him as a ‘hanger on’ – his jovial personality more than made up for that.

Arg loved a laugh and made the most of being a reality television star, enjoying all of the perks that came with it – especially his string of beautiful girlfriends such as Lydia Bright and Italian model Stella Turian.

Following his first split with Gemma in 2014 (the pair have had several brief reconciliations afterwards), Arg did manage to turn his life around.

He gave up the booze, went to rehab for his cocaine addiction, took himself out of the limelight and then tried to reinvent himself as a singer after losing a staggering 14 stone – later admitting he’d had a ‘life-changing’ gastric sleeve fitted. He was mortified that his drug addiction would come out before he was ready to talk about it himself, keen to put his own stamp on it and do what he could to protect his squeaky-clean image.

Soon, the headlines about his erratic behaviour stopped – and he had appeared to have found some solace in his talents as a performer.

Around a year later, in 2015, I saw Arg on Mark’s stag do in Las Vegas. Not long out of rehab, he kept out of the drunken shenanigans.

Mark was delighted that his friend had chosen to join him on the five-day jaunt – which became so boozy that the 20-strong gang called in IV drips to rehydrate themselves so that they could carry on partying. But Mark was extremely impressed by, and proud of, Arg’s sobriety.

Ever the loyal friend to Arg throughout his many low points, as the fallen star tries to rebuild his life once again after this self-inflicted blow to his dreams of a ‘happy ever after’, he may well need his old pal Mark more than ever before.