Jacqui Ritchie on her first date with Guy Ritchie and being a stepmother to Madonna’s kids

Looking back, I don’t know how I thought my meeting with Jacqui Ainsley, the model who recently became the new Mrs Guy Ritchie, would go. What I certainly didn’t expect was this: to be driven by a groundsman across their country estate in Wiltshire to find Jacqui’s entire clan holed up in a log cabin. Guy Ritchie is in an armchair, as relaxed as any man has ever been, handing me a glass of damson gin, finding out I’m from York and launching straight into a conversation about its medieval massacre of Jews — ‘the darkest day for British Jewry,’ quoting a history book he’s just read.

His wife is outside, standing topless in a lake in the pouring rain for our photo shoot, speaking Hebrew to the make-up artist, while her mum, who clearly runs things, is looking after the small Ritchie children, despite having her arm in a sling from dancing too hard at the wedding (I thought she said driving accident — ‘No, jiving accident’). Their posh drunk neighbour is hanging out, too, making repeated attempts to dive into my midriff for a cuddle, with Jacqui, 33, and Guy, 47, shouting and laughing, ‘Get off her, she’s come to do an interview,’ before we all pile into Land Rovers, with Jacqui ‘doing a Britney’, driving with a toddler on her lap. Back at the main house, Guy’s older two boys, Rocco and David Banda, from his marriage to Madonna, are hiding around corners to attack us with Nerf guns.

I’m not going to lie to you — I’ve had duller days. A character from Game of Thrones could come through on horseback and nobody would bat an eyelid before handing him a drink. ‘I am never, ever in a hurry to leave this place and get back to f***ing London,’ says Guy, and his wife agrees — though they spend most of their time at their townhouse in Marylebone. The older boys spend their summer holidays here. ‘Guy recently asked David if he could remember a time before me, and he said he couldn’t,’ she says. There is even a huge photo of Lourdes, Guy’s former stepdaughter, on the wall.

So how did all this happen? Who is this woman and how has she managed to produce three babies and a wedding in four years, like some kind of Richard Curtis film? Before all this, she dated the Pop Idol runner-up Darius for two years, living with him in Fulham, and did various commercial campaigns, including playing the silhouetted woman who dances through Madonna’s song ‘Die Another Day’ in the opening credits of the James Bond film. She met Guy through mutual friends at The Langham hotel. ‘Guy said: “That’s a pretty dress,” and I thought, “Well, he could just be a bit of a charmer.” So I said, “Are you auditioning for a new wife?” And he went, “Oo-ooh, cocky,” and we laughed.’

That is quite cocky. ‘It was and it wasn’t even the headspace that I was in — I was dating a French guy at the time, I had nothing to lose. But it was the first thing I ever said to Guy and we remembered it before the wedding. He said, “So maybe I was auditioning for a new wife!” We got goosebumps talking about it.’ Still, after the initial cockiness, she says, ‘I realised, “He’s fascinating — there’s so much more.” ’

Guy started sending texts asking, ‘Are you still with the Frog?’ Months later, both single, they finally went on their first date, by which point they had been emailing and texting ‘30 to 40 times a day’. Sorry, what? ‘Yeah, I’d be in South Africa doing a hair commercial and we’d be on Skype, quoting poems to each other, talking about members of our families. Immediate chemistry. When someone responds like that’ — she clicks her fingers — ‘you know they’re not playing a game. But then the first date is even more daunting, after we’d had all that, what if it was a massive letdown? Or he was like, er, “See you later”? So I was nervous and when I’m nervous I do like to have a drink,’ she laughs.

He’d asked her if she fancied posh or earthy and she’d replied earthy, not entirely sure what he was talking about. So he took her to the pub. ‘And he kept going, “One more, just one more,” and I kept saying I had to get my last train back to Southend.’ (She owned a sea-facing flat in her Essex hometown.) She missed the train and he said she could stay in his spare room. ‘And I thought, “Oh, that old chestnut.” Anyway I went’ — she laughs again — ‘and the next morning I had a cover shoot. It’s the first time in my life I’d drunk before work, I’m always very professional. And he rang me at work and said, “You are coming back tonight, aren’t you?” And I said, “I’m exhausted, hungover and I haven’t got all my stuff.” He goes, “OK, you can get your stuff, just bring it here.” So that was it. I never stayed at my place again.’

That was it? ‘That was it. Nine months later we were talking about babies. I mean, I knew in the pub. I looked at him and thought, “You’re the father of my kids.” I had an absolute certainty that I’ve never had about anything before. Do you know how scary that is?’

She goes quiet. I ask if he felt the same way. ‘He thinks I’m more intuitive than him, but he says that from the moment we started texting and emailing, he was saying to all his friends, “I think I’ve found her.” ’

They were both right. First there was Rafael, who’s just turned four and looks like his dad, then there’s their daughter Rivka, two, and now there is baby Levi, born in June 2014. They are looked after by French nannies and will be educated half in French, as Jacqui speaks it fluently and so do the older boys, since Madonna raised them that way, too. Jacqui wanted the kids to have something in common. As for her stepsons, she says, ‘You know, David’s a dream-boat, and so’s Rocco — they’re both fabulous human beings. Their parents have done a good job on them. Guy’s divorce was two years before I even arrived on the scene, so I think I came in at the right time of their lives, very lovely ages — Rocco must have been eight and David four. And the miniature three, the pickles [she means her own kids], they really benefit from being around their big brothers. We love to have them as much as possible, the house seems so quiet after they go. And my socks don’t go missing — David’s got the same size feet as me. I’ve been teaching myself guitar from YouTube and me and Rocco are about the same level now. We both just play ‘Wonderwall’ a hundred times a day and that’s it. But Guy is pretty amazing on the guitar.’ At Christmas they had a singalong with the kids and a friend came round with a mandolin and someone else was on the ukelele: ‘And my nan was here, singing all the old songs.’ Jacqui’s own childhood was far more modest — parents Bob and Janet, both secondary school English teachers, raised their family in a small semi — and she says she doesn’t want her kids to lose their ‘hunger’ in life by having wealth.

She is learning Hebrew with the help of a teacher in Israel via Skype, after Guy got her into it. She was always a bit of a linguist and fancies doing Arabic next. ‘He got me into studying the Kabbalah and the Torah and the ancient texts, but I was more interested in reading the original text than a translation. Then I found out what a complex language it was. I go into my lessons like I’m going into a meditation, like I’m not anxious about anything else that’s going on in my world.’

As for having spent the past three years pregnant, how does that feel? ‘Well, there’s nine months of pregnancy every time, then three months when you’re nursing and not really yourself, another year to really recover and I’m not very good on no sleep, but I’ll do it for them. I was so used to being selfish, doing everything that I wanted to, when I wanted to. It was quite a big learning curve, but I think that’s the biggest blessing. I remember with number two, worrying if I was going to be able to split my love. And then I held her and realised there was an infinite world of love. And then you go, “Ah!” ’ She gasps with delight. ‘We could do this over and over ten times! So then I became addicted to that feeling of being a mum and we wanted to go for number three. If I’d started younger, I think I could have gone for ten.’ I ask if she has stopped. She answers carefully, ‘For me, the shop is not shut.’

After the first two, she worked on regaining her figure. ‘Not while I was breastfeeding, because I was in a lovely place, but after that.’ It sounds like she was pretty strict. ‘But after Levi everything shifted and, honestly and truthfully, I didn’t care about the weight, I just wanted to feel strong. I became obsessed with watching YouTube videos with kettlebells and chin-up bars, Pilates. Built it up to five days a week training, then pole-dancing.’

At home? ‘No! I’m not sure I warrant a pole at home yet, I need to practise a bit more. It’s unbelievably hard — I nearly cried on my second lesson. You’re up there, upside down, and you’re coming down — it’s either concussion or Chinese burns. There’s no graceful at the beginning. Guy kept saying, “Bring back a video! Get someone to take one!” I kept saying, “Er, I forgot today…” ’

And so they decided to hold the wedding after all of that. They do seem well-suited; they are making a documentary together, but can’t tell me what it is. Jacqui stresses she will never become an actress, despite having a cameo in Guy’s new movie The Man From U.N.C.L.E. ‘I need to get one in King Arthur, too. I’m like, “Surely you need a mermaid? I could rock up with a tail?” ’ She loves talking to Guy about work and advising him on casting. ‘I made Guy watch Alicia Vikander in a Swedish film called A Royal Affair because I thought she’d been so good in it, then he put her in U.N.C.L.E.’

I ask if she turned into a Bridezilla, but she says she was very calm. ‘The night before, Rocco came to me and said he needed help writing his speech — he was pacing up and down. So I felt like I was calming everyone down.’ Her only anxiety was the weather, as it was an outdoor wedding with 150 guests staying in tents for three days, but the sun came out. They built a mini Glastonbury with yurts and food stalls; even David Beckham camped.