Ollie Locke shares fresh insight into ‘humiliating’ financial woes as he reveals £500,000 IVF cost and says his twins are ‘nonverbal’ and need expensive speech therapy

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Ollie Locke has shared details about the financial challenges he faced while becoming a father, explaining he spent approximately £500,000 on IVF and surrogacy.

Jamie Laing, 39, revealed to the Daily Mail that he sold his previous house to pay for fertility treatment with his husband, Gareth, 37. This allowed them to welcome their twins, Apollo and Cosima, born via surrogacy in July 2023.

Ollie recently shared the difficult journey they faced trying to become a parent, revealing they experienced six miscarriages. This caused them a great deal of emotional and financial hardship.

The pandemic added to the couple’s challenges as they tried to start a family, causing further delays in their journey to conceive.

After selling their property and paying significant expenses related to fertility treatments, Ollie and Gareth moved into a £4 million, four-bedroom house in Chelsea. They later fell behind on rent by £25,000 and were evicted from the property in February.

Ollie explained that they were advised IVF treatment could cost around £150,000. He considered remortgaging his house to try and fund it.

We had to sell our house because of financial difficulties. We received an acceptable offer and accepted it. We were facing extremely high bills, and after experiencing several miscarriages, we eventually had two children, but the entire process cost us £500,000.

We longed for children, but the process took four years, complicated by Covid and legal hurdles.

The couple shared their money troubles with the Daily Mail, explaining they’re currently £45,000 behind on rent and related expenses after falling three months behind on payments.

The tenants are responsible for the unpaid costs, along with another tenant listed on the lease. This third tenant paid her rent to Ollie and Gareth, but they didn’t forward the money to the property owner.

Ollie explained that the situation caused him significant distress, leading to a personal crisis. He and Gareth are fully dedicated to paying back the money they owe, so they can put this behind them and rebuild their lives.

He shared that he’s been feeling terrible lately, both emotionally and physically. He’s been hurt by the way some friends have acted, and he’s experiencing the lowest point in his life, which led to a very difficult emotional breakdown.

Gareth pointed out that their financial struggles aren’t unique, asking if most people actually pay all their bills on time. He noted that everyone faces money problems, whether it’s a late credit card payment or difficulty with rent.

He explained that becoming parents changed their financial focus, especially with the ongoing and increasing expenses of raising their twins, who were born prematurely at 31 weeks.

Because Gareth’s work as a TV personality and influencer is often inconsistent, he believes a full-time nanny is essential, even though it’s a significant expense.

He explained that they didn’t go on vacation last year because they knew they were starting to have less money.

Honestly, since we had kids, everything changed. They’re amazing, but let’s be real, they’re expensive! We’ve totally put our own needs on the back burner – it’s all about them now. And things got even more complicated because they were born early. It meant extra doctor’s visits, therapies… just a lot more costs and things we needed to do to make sure they were developing okay. It’s exhausting, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Being twins is challenging enough, but it’s even harder when our work is unpredictable. Last year, we worked on five different TV shows, and it often felt like we were scrambling to figure out childcare with such a shifting schedule.

Okay, so listen, supporting them is EVERYTHING to me, but it’s just… complicated. I need to be able to really focus on helping them succeed, and that means finding someone to watch the kids, and honestly? Childcare costs are insane! It’s a huge barrier, but I’ll figure it out, because they deserve all the support in the world.

Ollie explains that, on top of regular childcare expenses, the twins’ premature birth has meant extra costs for things that help them develop.

After receiving care at hospitals in Durham, Sunderland, and Chelsea & Westminster, Apollo and Cosima were able to return home in 2023.

The proud parents shared the news of their babies’ arrival with a photoshoot at their former home in Chelsea for a magazine. They announced the full story and beautiful photos are featured in this week’s issue of Hello! magazine, along with pictures of their new family at home.

‘Also make sure to catch up on new episodes of ‘Our Daddy Diaries’ every week on YouTube.’

Nearly three years have passed, and Ollie reports that their children still haven’t said a word. As a result, the couple is spending a lot of money on speech therapy.

Oh my gosh, Ollie just gets it, you know? He was saying it’s been a real learning experience, and honestly, same! It feels like everyone’s struggling right now with money, especially with everything costing a fortune. He even mentioned his family – a family of four just trying to make ends meet, just like so many of us! It’s so relatable and it just makes me love him even more that he’s so down to earth.

Caring for premature babies is expensive – around £1,000 a week – because they often need extra support before they can start nursery. They may not be able to communicate verbally yet, so we have to pay for specialized classes and one-on-one help, which adds significantly to the cost.

Gareth explained that the unexpected and prolonged Covid pandemic was a major challenge they faced, making an already difficult situation even worse.

We’re just like most people – in our thirties, focused on raising a family and running our businesses. Money is often tight, so we carefully planned our finances before starting a family. Things are generally going well, though we’ve had a few challenges along the way.

Gareth recently told the Mail that even after leaving their previous rental home, which cost £7,000 a month, their current housing costs are about the same.

Gareth explained that their financial difficulties have created a contrast in how he and Ollie are coping, with Gareth staying strong while Ollie is really struggling.

He explained that he tries to stay strong for Ollie and avoid letting his feelings overwhelm him. Ollie then shared that he’s usually the more emotional one, and this situation has been extremely difficult, leading to a breakdown.

‘Gareth is quite stoic and I couldn’t do life without him because it wouldn’t make any sense.

I really need to have a good cry, and I’ve already shown enough emotion publicly. I’m not a particularly resilient person, and while I can hold my own in a debate, I can’t handle being publicly humiliated.

Ollie and Gareth got married in 2020 at the Natural History Museum in London, and their wedding was featured on the E4 show, Made In Chelsea.

They’re now prioritizing raising their twin children and are planning to leave their glamorous, high-profile life in west London for a more low-key existence.

Ollie admitted that after being on the reality show for a while, he’d been pretending to live a lavish life – complete with champagne and weekend getaways – even though it wasn’t really true.

Gareth explained they decided to move to escape bad memories and start anew. Their previous home held a lot of negative experiences they wanted to leave behind.

I’ve found the perfect place, honestly! It’s a neighborhood full of lovely families and people our age, which is just…amazing. We’re finally realizing we needed a change. Living in Chelsea was fun, sure, but it felt like everyone was always out partying. It just wasn’t really geared towards family life, you know? This feels like home, a place where we can really build something.

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2026-04-13 19:06