The distraught wife of rugby league love rat Joe Westerman has revealed how his sex tape shame has destroyed their family.
Lauren Westerman, 33, said the graphic seven-second clip, filmed in a dark alley behind a branch of Greggs and uploaded to Twitter, had inflicted untold harm on her and their children.
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The eldest two, aged nine and 14, have both tearfully endured the ordeal of watching the footage after cruel kids at school took delight in sending it to them on Snapchat.
Primary school teacher Lauren fears it will scar them all and revealed: “People used to look up to him but not any more.”
In an exclusive interview with The Sun, the mum-of-three told how his almighty fall from grace, and her living nightmare, began after the player went on an extraordinary 15-hour booze binge at the weekend.
It started at 11.30am on Saturday in the pubs and bars of Pontefract, West Yorks, took in the grim alleyway and ended at 2.30am the next day.
Hours later, footage of the Castleford Tigers star — his trousers and pants wrapped round his ankles while performing a sex act on a blonde estate agent — had been shared all over the world, leaving a trail of heartache.
Lauren has been bombarded with apologetic text messages from her 33-year-old childhood sweetheart but she is adamant there is no way back.
“I’ve relived that footage over and over again,” Lauren told The Sun.
“It’s something I’ll never be able to get out of my mind no matter how hard I try.
“There are absolutely no excuses for what he’s done, not just to me but to our children and wider family.
“Everything between us was fine, he FaceTimed me at 4pm on Saturday while he was out and then texted at 2.30am to say he couldn’t get in because he didn’t have his house keys.
“I was staying overnight at my mum’s house and he texted the next morning to say how rough he felt, but that was it.
“There was no inkling of what was to come.”
But by the end of the following day, Lauren’s world would come crashing down after Joe revealed the truth.
“Later that night, Joe was at our neighbour’s house and he said, ‘I need to talk to you’,” she explained.
“His face just dropped and he looked totally different.
He said, ‘I’ve done something last night … I’ve been videoed with a girl with my pants down’.
“I asked to see the video and he said he didn’t have it but that it was on Twitter.
“I went on to Twitter and saw it had been deleted and deleted loads of times and then about half an hour later it was posted again and that’s when I saw it.
“I just felt physically sick.
“My next thought was for my 14-year-old daughter and whether I could get to her before she saw it.
“But it was too late. She kept being added to these Snapchat groups from school and being sent the video.
“She left the groups but kept being added to more and it was sent to her again and again and again.
“Our nine-year-old was also sent a screenshot of the video in messages.
“That’s their dad and I feel so sorry for them that they’ve had to see something like that.
“Truth is, he only told me because it was on social media.
“But I’m glad it was found because the thought of kissing him after that just makes me feel sick.”
Lauren was also contacted by worried friends who had seen the video online and feared she was unaware.
However, she told them each: “It’s OK, I’ve already seen it.”
Lauren, who married Joe in 2014, reveals she immediately kicked him out of the family home but paused momentarily to show the awful memes featuring him that are now flooding social media.
For a while, people online claimed it was Lauren in the video and joked about the Westermans being “filthy tramps”.
Fuming Lauren logged back on and wrote: “Can I make this VERY clear that this is NOT me!!!!!!”
She added: “And we have three children, one of whom is almost 15, and she doesn’t need to see things like this all over social media!”
As Twitter erupted, Joe texted Lauren: “Words will never ever explain how sorry I am.
“I can’t explain what happened cos I physically can’t remember.
“It’s disgusting and I now have to live with it forever.
“Losing you and the kids is heartbreaking Lauren, you deserve so much better.”
Another message read: “You always said alcohol would f*** me up.”
Lauren replied to say it was a shame he had never listened, to which he replied: “Story of my life. I miss you like crazy. U was perfect.”
More followed, including: “I need you to know I can’t remember anything about that night. I look like a zombie.”
His club, who will play their Super League season opener against Hull on Sunday without him, launched an investigation into the video that concluded with him paying a “substantial fine” and agreeing to undertake community service to educate young people about the effects of alcohol.
Joe also apologised in a statement issued via the club, saying: “I have realised that I need to work on my decision-making around alcohol.
Sitting at the dining room table of a pal’s home, Lauren is remarkably charitable, saying: “I thought it was forever.
“We’ve had our ups and downs but always managed to find our way back together.
“This is just incredibly sad. I feel heartbroken, angry, sad and disappointed.
“He’s laid waste to everything. I haven’t been able to sleep because of it. But there is no way back.
“I want us to get on eventually and have a really good co- parenting life.
“I want the kids to want to see their dad. I want him now to use this to turn his life around, do counselling or whatever he is doing through the club, stop drinking and be a good dad.
“That is all I want and I’d like to think that this time next year he will be an advocate for not drinking.
“For some people, drinking is the devil.”
She added: “I’ve got no choice but to be strong now.
“I could sit and cry in a ball, let the kids see me and they’d dislike their daddy even more.
“That’s not what I want at all.”
And of the married mum-of-two involved in the video, Lauren says: “It’s the children I feel for. Our children and her children.
“She’ll never live it down. She’s lost her job and there are memes of her sweeping the internet. Her children are going to see that.
“I don’t know if our children will ever forgive their dad.
“There will be no more family dinners, no family days out.
“It’s all gone. The kids won’t be able to see him play again because of the chants he will now inspire.
“I just hope in time they can forget it.”
This story first appeared in The Sun and was republished with permission.