After weeks of denying an affair, Carol Anthony has admitted she is dating former Liverpool footballer Ian Rush.

The Irish singer, who goes by the stage name ‘Havana’, spoke of being ‘close to a breakdown’ in recent weeks after reports suggested it was she who caused the breakdown of the 51-year-old’s marriage to his wife of 26 years.

Carol, who was four when Rush married wife Tracy in 1987, was rumoured to have been hooking up with the football legend ever since they met on holidays in Portugal in 2010.

When the rumours first surfaced, Anthony vehemently denied any affair and swore the pair were just ‘drinking buddies’.

The pair pictured together in Dublin recently

According to today’s Sunday Independent, however, it is now official. Speaking to the paper the singer said; “I am in a relationship with Ian Rush. We are officially seeing each other. We were just friends, drinking buddies, before but, in the last month, that friendship has grown into something real”.

Carol herself wed less than a year ago. She tied the knot with Cork publican, Bernard Murphy, last August. Speaking of that union, she said; “My marriage ended six months ago and my relationship with Ian just blossomed after that. Bernard and I haven’t spoken in over five months. Ian had nothing to do with the break-up of my marriage. Ian is a great guy, a lovely fella. But we’re taking things slowly”.