The shame of shabby Abi

Friends and family of Abi Titmuss would have been sorely disappointed if they were looking for signs of contrition in the wake of the unsavoury revelations at the weekend about her sexual activities.

On Sunday evening - the same day Ms Titmuss had granted an insight into her colourful personal life to a downmarket newspaper - she appeared at a celebrity football match with her boyfriend John Leslie, looking every inch the groomed and camera-savvy showbusiness personality.

Indeed, she seemed in remarkably high spirits given that in the newspapers scattered around the VIP area where she sat, her face was peering out amid lurid headlines shouting of her 'confessions' to, among other unpleasantries, participation in a drink and drug-fuelled orgy.

It was, she confided to one friend, the first time she had been out for a week, and she was enjoying the chance to socialise - although, of course, she was quick to emphasise she was only there 'to support John', who was taking part in the match.

Whatever her motives, she was far from eager to maintain a low profile - as her figure-hugging top, revealing inches of bare stomach, signalled.

Indeed, according to onlookers, Abi seemed to be rather enjoying her new-found notoriety. 'She certainly wasn't remotely embarrassed. In fact, she had a rather starry attitude. She was laughing and joking with John's friends, and giggling about all the photographers that had been outside the house over the last week,' said one.

'At one point, I heard her volunteering to run out on to the pitch to help the players if they were injured.'

Not, you might think, the behaviour you'd expect from someone embroiled in a deeply tawdry sex scandal. But then, such is 27-year- old Abi's hunger for fame - a hunger fuelled, it seems, rather than quelled by the rollercoaster events of recent months - that no behaviour is too outlandish.

It is also a hunger that has latterly devastated her respectable parents, who have been left bewildered by the revelations about their beloved daughter, and caused enormous upset among the tight-knit circle of friends who have supported Abi and John through events of recent months and who now, in the words of one, feel that support has been 'thrown back in our faces'.

Moreover - in what may be the ultimate irony - it seems Abi is about to find that her ill-judged confessions have sounded the death knell for the television career she yearns.

Naively, she had assumed her notoriety would propel her to greater heights. Yet one seasoned industry executive says: 'Abi was perfect pre-watershed material. Now it's emerged her lifestyle is more of the postwatershed sort, she doesn't stand a chance.'

Certainly, the recent revelations about her private life - about which more shortly - are a long way from the reputation Abi had carved out as 'Ab fab', the angel-faced nurse who stood by her man when the rest of the world had turned against him.

After 38-year-old John Leslie was named in conjunction with allegations of rape made by the television presenter Ulrika Jonsson, it was Abi - stoic, determined, capable and steady - who stepped forward to offer her support.

That support remained unwavering when a stream of women came forward making unsavoury claims about his behaviour - and with her girl-next-door looks and no-nonsense manner, Abi's apparent goodness lent Leslie credibility as his reputation came under fire.

In the wake of the allegations against the former Blue Peter presenter being dropped, it was Abi who was credited with his emotional survival.

Over the past fortnight, however, a rather different picture has emerged of a sexually voracious young woman who is an equally eager participant in the kind of tawdry bedroom activities of which Leslie had publicly confessed to being fond.

Last week, basketball player Jayson Blayde produced more than 50 explicit photographs and a video of Abi involved in lurid sexual acts with himself and his partner. Abi, Mr Blayde revealed, had not only taken part in a foursome but allowed herself to be filmed in dominatrix gear.

Unpleasant enough, you might think. Yet this weekend, Abi decided to take things one step further and grant her own - notably unrepentant - insight into her life with Leslie in an exclusive deal with a Sunday tabloid, for which she is believed to have been paid in the region of £100,000.

Under the headline 'I confess', she discusses how she had sex with another woman to 'entertain' Leslie, and allowed him to videotape her being 'touched intimately' by another man. 'I suppose I'm the perfect girlfriend,' she said airily. 'I stick up for John - I'm an angel in the courtroom and a whore in the bedroom.'

She added, apparently unable to see the irony of issuing the statement in the pages of national newspaper, that 'what we do behind closed doors is our business, no one else's'.

Her defiance shows little feeling for those who have stood by Abi and John Leslie over the past 18 months, many of whom are now 'in shock' at her antics.

As one friend put it: 'None of us can believe it. It's not that we're particularly surprised by what they get up to - they've always been quite a full-on, passionate couple, and it's not a great shock that they're a bit naughty in the bedroom department - but it's the way they've dealt with it.

'Many of us feel let down. We have spent months supporting them through all the allegations and the turmoil, and we can't believe that just as the dust was settling they would go and do this.

'It's like having everything thrown back in our face. You can't keep on complaining about being a victim - which both of them do - and then keep sticking your head above the parapet. It's either breathtakingly stupid, or breathtakingly naive.'

In particular, it is Abi's candid admission that she was involved in the purchase of £100 of cocaine - an admission that has left her open to the possibility of criminal charges - that her friends are openmouthed about.

'No one can believe that she mentioned taking drugs. She saw first hand the uproar when it emerged that John had taken cocaine - in fact, she spoke to us all then about how silly he had been. So to put herself at the centre of it, too, just seems like rank stupidity.'

A cabbie who drove Abi and Jayson Blayde back to Leslie's home recently told police she had asked him to stop and then they had bought the drug from a dealer. Abi admitted she had paid for it, but said it was Blayde's idea.

Whether it was stupidity or the blinding effects of ambition that prompted her to speak out, friends are unimpressed by Abi's actions.

'Over the last few months, all John and Abi's friends have told them to keep a low profile, but it seems they're unable to. They're like moths attracted to the light.

'Abi seems to be so blinded by the sparkle of celebrity that she has lost her sense of herself.' It is a development-that may, sadly, cost her some of her friendships as well as her fledgling career.

'I haven't spoken to her this week and I really don't want to at the moment,' another told the Mail yesterday. 'What can you say? Saw you in the paper, congratulations. It's embarrassing.'

'Embarrassing' is, of course, the least of it for Abi's devastated parents, Susan and Peter.

Middle-class teachers from Lincolnshire, to whom Abi has always been close despite their divorce when she was 14, they had been warned by their daughter to 'expect the worst' in advance of the weekend's revelations. But they were still distraught by the graphic headlines.

A friend of Mrs Titmuss said: 'She is devastated. It is like her world has caved in.'

Yesterday, there was no answer at the three-bedroom semi-detached house in Ruskington, where Abi spent her teenage years and where her mother now resides.

But villagers said the events of recent days had caused 'huge upset' for Mrs Titmuss, a polite, cheerful woman who is wellknown in the local community.

'Susan and Abi always had a close relationship, so to see Abi splashed across the papers talking about sex orgies and drugtaking has broken her heart,' says one. 'She is very, very upset. What mother wouldn't be?'

What, then, of John and Abi themselves? Ironically, of late, Abi had distanced herself from her high-profile ex in the hope of furthering her career, worried that his downward trajectory would prove a burden rather than an asset. Now, it appears the two have been thrown together again.

Just as they appeared closest when Leslie was accused of sexual assault, again it's taken a scandal for them to present a united front.

'We're happy with the way we are at the moment,' Abi revealed at the weekend. Certainly, she may need his support, for she now looks set to find her own career 'flatlined' alongside his.

Already, she has been axed from her job as a roving reporter with Channel 4's Richard And Judy show, with the senior executives who hired her apparently furious at the way events have unfolded.

'They feel completely duped,' revealed an insider. 'They thought they'd got this sexy girl-next-door who appealed to their female viewers, and then they find out she's a good-time girl with a series of saucy bedroom secrets. It's not the sort of thing they want on a teatime show.'

And Abi is, according to industry insiders, likely to find much the same attitude everywhere.

'No one will touch her now. Her image has been tarnished, and in television, image is everything. What she's done isn't perceived as glamorous - it all seems a bit grubby. The general consensus among TV people is: "What on earth was she thinking of?"'

Only a fortnight ago, Abi was linked to a number of new presenting roles, and tipped for appearances in the series Footballers' Wives. The only offers now are from the soft porn cable channels who are said to be contemplating 'substantial' amounts to hire her as a presenter.

Meanwhile, executives at Playboy magazine are understood to be ready to offer Ms Titmuss a six-figure sum to disrobe for their centre pages. Not, perhaps, the kind of work that she had in mind when she made her ill-conceived decision to exploit her new-found notoriety.

Sadly, this fallen angel may find that the price of her ambition is seedy infamy, rather than the fame she so badly craves.