Martin Kemp's wife, Shirlie Kemp, celebrated her 63rd birthday early on Tuesday as she posted a gorgeous photo of her relaxing at home in the garden while wearing a black Borg zip-up jacket paired with jeans and leather boots. The former Wham back-up singer has been married to the Eastenders actor for 37 years, and the couple regularly share snippets of the content life they lead with their adult children Roman Kemp, 32, and Harley Moon Kemp, 35. Despite the beaming smile on her face for the camera, the former singer has been struggling with her health as of late, as she made a candid confession to her 246,000 followers on Instagram.

Shirlie typed: "This is my birthday week; I’m a true Aries girl, always rushing around at 100 mph and then exhausting myself, but now’s a time to stop and reflect.

"My goal is to get fit again; it took quite a while to regain my confidence after ankle surgery. I feared it would damage it again, but I'm back at the gym and doing more than I thought I could; as we age, we get weak, so if we don’t keep ourselves strong, We won’t be able to do all the things we love, and there’s a lot of things I love and still want to do. #mindovermatter #keepmoving."

Her fans were quick to lavish praise on Shirlie as they said she looked "marvellous" as they noted her recent weight loss following a 2023 operation, she had to replace the ligament in her ankle.

One said, "Happy Birthday, girlie. I thought you looked slim in another pic you posted. You're right about fitness. It's so good for your mental health, too. X." Another commented, "Happy birthday, @shirliekemp. You look very pretty. You're a lucky woman—a woman blessed by God. Kisses from Spain."

Shirlie explained her surgery was needed as she is "hypermobile", which makes it "easy to damage joints and ligaments" all over her body.

She shared: "As a child, I loved showing people how I could easily lift my feet over my head; I just thought it strange everyone else found it so difficult. I couldn’t get into yoga as I never experienced what a stretch felt like as I was too flexible, but these days, it’s taken far more seriously and even linked to having higher anxiety than normal, which makes a lot of sense to me."

On how she has been advised to look after her hyper-mobility, Shirlie added: "They now advise not to wear high heels, which I stopped doing quite a few years ago because that is how I tore my ligaments."