‘We panicked once we realised viewers see all the things’

We’d really feel like we all know Stacey Solomon and Joe Swash already. We now have seen them dwell off rice and beans within the Australian rainforest in I am a Movie star… Get Me Out of Right here! We now have watched Joe study to ice skate in Dancing on Ice and Stacey declutter properties in Kind Your Life Out.

However the now couple are going one step additional and permitting viewers inside Pickle Cottage, their household dwelling in Essex, in a brand new actuality sequence for BBC One.

It’s a fly-on-the-wall sequence – and Stacey says she solely realised within the thick of the filming that viewers can see all the things, “and then you definitely panic a bit”, she tells the BBC.

However finally, they’re only a regular household “doing our greatest in each side of our lives”, she says.

“So ultimately, you form of chill out with that, and also you assume, ‘Oh properly, in order that they noticed us get the hump with one another, or they noticed us do one thing flawed’.

“That’s in all probability the most effective factor we may present the world, as a result of all the things is not excellent.”

There was no level in doing a actuality present, says Joe, in the event that they weren’t going to be sincere.

“We do not wish to glamourise something,” says Joe. “Our greatest discussions initially of this have been, ‘how a lot are folks going to wish to watch us take the children to highschool and alter nappies?’ Our lives are usually not that thrilling.”

Joe, 43, a former EastEnders actor, and Stacey, 35, a former X Issue contestant, met on the set of I am a Movie star in 2010 and have been in a relationship since 2016.

They married in 2022 and are elevating 5 youngsters – Zach, Leighton, Rex, Rose and Belle – aged between 17 and two, alongside two canines and 4 geese.

“After I met Joe, my older youngsters [Zach and Leighton] have been 4 and 7,” says Stacey, “in order that they have been little.”

When folks say it’s good to see a blended household, she says she forgets that’s what they’re. “To be sincere, we’re only a household.”

Joe says he struggles generally with the phrases – blended household, stepdad and stepsons.

“I really like [Zach and Leighton] as a lot as I really like all my different children,” he says. “There is not any distinction.”

In relation to childcare, the couple wouldn’t have a nanny or au pair, however they do have a really supportive household.

“We have Dave – my dad – and my sister,” says Stacey. “And I all the time say this, we dwell like a Kibbutz. We mainly all chip in with one another.”

In addition to juggling household and work, viewers will get to see all features of Stacey and Joe’s lives, which, like several relationship, can embody the odd disagreement.

“We wish to present that we love one another, however generally we kill one another,” says Joe. “It is all a part of it, and different {couples} do the identical, in order that they’ll relate to that.”

Stacey says she discovered having the ability to watch again and mirror on a state of affairs fairly useful as she may see it from an outsider’s standpoint, which she believes is wholesome for a relationship.

Viewers can even get to see the love and assist Stacey and Joe give one another. Joe describes Stacey as extraordinarily loyal, like a “mom lion”.

“Do not go close to her cubs, she’ll have you ever,” he says.

“She’s simply essentially the most fantastic individual,” he says. “She’s form, she’s loving. I imply there’s nothing about Stacey I’d change. Folks love her within the streets and, think about me, I am so fortunate, I get to spend the remainder of my life together with her.”

Joe has the flexibility to provide everybody a little bit of himself, says Stacey, which is “so magic” and he has essentially the most unimaginable quantity of empathy, she says.

Their parenting kinds, however, are “polar reverse” she says.

“I am conscious that Stacey takes numerous the brunt as a result of I let [the children] do one thing and he or she’s the one which has to say, ‘No, you possibly can’t do this’,” says Joe. “So she has to play dangerous cop numerous the time, which I’m conscious of, however I simply do not know some other manner.”

Stacey believes this stems from the truth that Joe misplaced his father when he was very younger.

“I feel that when that occurs to you in your life, clearly you simply wish to be… enjoyable, blissful. You do not wish to create any adverse reminiscences,” she says.

For his or her household, having younger youngsters and youngsters rising up collectively has created one thing actually magical.

Stacey says the teenage boys can revert to being youthful once more which is necessary as a result of they develop up so rapidly within the trendy world. They’ve the possibility to nonetheless play, with the excuse being “oh, I am solely doing it as a result of it is with my little brother or little sister”, she says.

It additionally provides the older boys an enormous sense of accountability, she provides.

Elevating 5 youngsters requires military-style organisation, says Stacey, one thing she learnt after having her first son on the age of 17.

“I, fairly frankly, was in all probability essentially the most scatty teenager you have ever identified,” says Stacey. “After I had Zachary, I had this one entire life that I used to be chargeable for, and so many issues that I had to do this I might by no means needed to think about.”

She says she would get a giro – a welfare cheque – to money in at a sure time on a Thursday on the Put up Workplace, and he or she realised she couldn’t be late as she wanted the cash for groceries.

Stacey relied on Zach and “requested numerous him”, she says, needing him to assist her.

“I have never carried out that with the youthful ones, as a result of I’ve had Joe,” she says, “and that is simply the truth of my state of affairs. It has been completely different by means of the years.”

However Zach, now 17 himself, is “in all probability some of the empathetic, caring, emotionally clever younger youngsters that I do know,” says Stacey.

“I really feel like that has so much to do with how we grew up collectively, and the way life was for us to start with.”

Having extra youngsters is just not at the moment on Stacey’s radar, she says, as her physique continues to be recovering from having three youngsters in 5 years.

“My pelvic ground is dying,” she laughs. Though Joe would like to have extra.

Stacey nonetheless has plans to extend their brood – however this time it’s their animals.

“I actually walked right into a dialog the opposite day and I heard ‘cow’,” says Joe, “and I used to be like, ‘No manner, we won’t have a cow’.”

“We have been simply throwing just a few concepts round,” says Stacey. “I’d like to have animals and make our personal milk and acquire our personal eggs and develop our personal greens.

“That is a dream of mine – however sooner or later. In the intervening time, we’re nonetheless rearing youngsters.”

Stacey & Joe begins on Tuesday 1 April at 20:00 BST on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.