Showbiz’s unlikeliest couple are ‘heating up’: Lou Teasdale’s romance with Andy Carroll has mystified her friends… but they could be getting serious, reveals MOLLY CLAYTON. And Billi Mucklow is blindsided

One is the ultimate A-list pop star who never puts a foot wrong. The other is a scandal-prone fourth-division French footballer and ex-husband of a star from reality show The Only Way Is Essex.

So, what could possibly connect stratospheric Harry Styles – whose wholesome image has won him millions of adoring fans – and party boy Andy Carroll, who has been plagued by rumours of infidelity and violence, and whose fan-base is considerably smaller?

The answer: Lou Teasdale, a beauty guru-turned-influencer and former make-up artist for One Direction, the boy band that launched Harry to stardom.

Ms Teasdale, who was best friends with the late television presenter Caroline Flack, has recently grown close to Carroll, following his split from Essex darling Billi Mucklow, his wife of two years and mother of his three sons.

Sources say that things between Ms Teasdale and Carroll are heating up, with the make-up mogul even traveling to France to visit Carroll and watch him play for FC Girondins de Bordeaux.

Billi Mucklow with Andy Carroll in June… Ms Mucklow has been ‘blindsided’ by his romance with influencer Lou Teasdale

Just last week, she was spotted enjoying a date in London’s Spitalfields with the former West Ham striker, 35. Meanwhile, Ms Mucklow was said to be ‘blindsided’ by the fledging romance (neither Ms Teasdale nor Carroll have denied they are dating).

And you can’t blame her. With her star-studded contact book and a successful career in her own right, Teasdale is a very unlikely WAG. One source told me she is ‘just so well connected, she is literally someone who knows everyone’.

Ms Teasdale has carved out quite a career for herself as an influencer with six million Instagram followers, two successful businesses and a million-pound house in Hackney which has its own Instagram account – as well as a second property which she is doing up.

Lou Teasdale became pals with Harry Styles when she worked with One Direction

She co-owns the hair colouring company Bleach London with her twin sister Samantha Teasdale, which they launched in 2010.

Now with two salons, one in Los Angeles and one in London, the company has raised more than £10million in investment and has sold more than £30million of products in the UK alone.

‘Lou is hardly your typical WAG,’ says an associate of the 40-year-old. ‘She is not exactly the type to have hair extensions and gaudy handbags, she is much more hip than all of that which is hardly in keeping with Andy who, let’s face it, is a bit of a chav.

‘She is very cool, very bright, very successful and definitely, definitely doesn’t need Andy’s money.’

Indeed, it seems that Ms Teasdale will be the breadwinner in the relationship. Carroll, who also played for Newcastle United and Liverpool, is reportedly earning £3,000 a month at his semi-professional club Bordeaux and told one French sport website that the income doesn’t even cover his costs.

Influencer Lou Teasdale has six million followers on Instagram

He said: ‘To be honest, it’s even costing me money to come and play for Bordeaux.’

The differences between the couple don’t end there. Unlike Carroll, who has found himself in trouble after boozy nights out, Ms Teasdale is teetotal.

In July this year, Carroll was filmed drunkenly stumbling down a Mayfair street and shouting at bystanders after getting into a scrap with a stranger at 1am.

Just weeks before marrying Ms Mucklow in 2022, he was snapped passed out in bed with two blondes during a wild Dubai stag do.

The list of Carroll’s scandals goes on. In 2012, he faced police questioning in Ireland over an alleged altercation with a photographer, and in 2010 he was fined £1,000 for assault outside a Newcastle nightclub.

In October 2010, the footballer was charged with assault in an incident with an ex-girlfriend but, due to a lack of evidence, the charges were dropped.

Andy Carroll and Billi Mucklow at their lavish 2022 wedding in Hampshire 

Ms Teasdale, on the other hand, hasn’t touched a drop since the birth of her daughter in 2011. ‘I stopped drinking because I lost my tolerance when I stopped for pregnancy,’ she said. ‘I just don’t like drinking or how it makes me feel.’

Many might wonder what Ms Teasdale stands to gain from a relationship with Carroll.

Unlike many a WAG before her, she has grafted hard for her career.

After moving to London from Yorkshire in her twenties to study at the London College of Fashion, ambitious Ms Teasdale began assisting hairdressers on photoshoots and jobs before getting her big break assisting the glam squad on The X Factor.

She soon became a favourite among the contestants on the show – namely the newly formed boy band One Direction, who invited her on their 54-show worldwide tour. Pregnant with her daughter Lux at the time – who she had with her then fiancé, photographer and musician Tom Atkin – Ms Teasdale became a trusted part of their inner circle. Halfway through the tour in 2012, it was rumoured that heartthrob Styles was dating Taylor Swift – and Styles, then 18, even brought baby Lux along on his infamous Central Park date with the pop star!

Lou Teasdale is said to have gone to see Andy Carroll play for his new club, French fourth-tier team FC Girondins de Bordeaux

In the years that followed, Lux was taught to walk by Styles’s bandmate Zayn Malik, and carried out on to a football pitch by other bandmate Louis Tomlinson at his charity football match. Even today Lux, now 13, refers to Styles as ‘Uncle Harry’.

Ms Teasdale and Styles have remained best friends – some even say they dated – since he appeared on The X Factor in 2010, despite the ten year age gap.

It was touring with One Direction that introduced Ms Teasdale to many of her now celebrity friends.

She and Tomlinson’s sister Lottie, 26, became close when she offered her a job to be her assistant, helping with the boys hair while on tour.

The duo then launched the fake tan brand Tanologist in 2018 and are still best friends.

And it was through her friendship with Harry that Ms Teasdale also became close pals with the late television presenter Caroline Flack, who dated Styles back in 2011 when he was just 17 and she 31.

Years later, it was Ms Teasdale who found Ms Flack after she took her own life in February 2020.

During the inquest hearing into Ms Flack’s death, it was revealed that Ms Teasdale visited her home on the evening of February 14, the night before she died, after she received a message from the presenter saying she was going to kill herself.

That night, Ms Teasdale called paramedics to Ms Flack’s home after finding her barely conscious on the sofa of her north London flat with tablets around her.

Refusing to go to hospital, Ms Flack promised her friends she’d go to the GP the next day.

Ms Teasdale stayed overnight with Ms Flack but the next morning, angry that her friends had called 999, she asked them to leave.

Once alone, she took her own life.

The inquest in August 2020 heard that Ms Teasdale and Ms Flack’s twin sister Jody found her body upon returning to the house.

To the shock of fans, Ms Teasdale’s friend Lottie Tomlinson confirmed her relationship with Ms Flack’s ex Lewis Burton, now 32.

After Ms Tomlinson lost her mother in 2016 to cancer, the pair are said to have met at a memorial and bonded over their grief.

However, Ms Teasdale and Ms Tomlinson are still very close.

Carroll is Ms Teasdale’s first partner since splitting from SAS: Who Dares Wins star Jay Morton, 40, in January 2023. The couple started dating in April 2022 after they were spotted looking cosy together during a trip to the Coachella festival in California. She introduced him to her family at the time, with him growing close to her daughter Lux, but their split reportedly ‘wasn’t amicable’ and Ms Teasdale was looking for a new start.

And that’s exactly what she has got with Carroll – albeit an unexpected one.