'We panicked when we realised viewers see everything' - Stacey and Joe on their new show

We might feel like we know Stacey Solomon and Joe Swash already. We have seen them live off rice and beans in the Australian rainforest in I'm a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! We have watched Joe learn to ice skate in Dancing on Ice and Stacey declutter homes in Sort Your Life Out.

But the now couple are going one step further and allowing viewers inside Pickle Cottage, their family home in Essex, in a new reality series for BBC One.

It is a fly-on-the-wall series - and Stacey says she only realised in the thick of the filming that viewers can see everything, "and then you panic a bit", she tells the BBC.

But ultimately, they are just a normal family "doing our best in every aspect of our lives", she says.

"So in the end, you sort of relax with that, and you think, 'Oh well, so they saw us get the hump with each other, or they saw us do something wrong'.

"That is probably the best thing we could show the world, because everything isn't perfect."

There was no point in doing a reality show, says Joe, if they were not going to be honest.

"We don't want to glamourise anything," says Joe. "Our biggest discussions at the beginning of this were, 'how much are people going to want to watch us take the kids to school and change nappies?' Our lives are not that exciting."

Joe, 43, a former EastEnders actor, and Stacey, 35, a former X Factor contestant, met on the set of I'm a Celebrity in 2010 and have been in a relationship since 2016.

They married in 2022 and are raising five children - Zach, Leighton, Rex, Rose and Belle - aged between 17 and two, alongside two dogs and four ducks.

"When I met Joe, my older children [Zach and Leighton] were four and seven," says Stacey, "so they were little."

When people say it is nice to see a blended family, she says she forgets that is what they are. "To be honest, we're just a family."

Joe says he struggles sometimes with the words - blended family, stepdad and stepsons.

"I love [Zach and Leighton] as much as I love all my other kids," he says. "There's no distinction."

When it comes to childcare, the couple do not have a nanny or au pair, but they do have a very supportive family.

"We've got Dave - my dad - and my sister," says Stacey. "And I always say this, we live like a Kibbutz. We basically all chip in with each other."

As well as juggling family and work, viewers will get to see all aspects of Stacey and Joe's lives, which, like any relationship, can include the odd disagreement.

"We want to show that we love each other, but sometimes we kill each other," says Joe. "It's all part of it, and other couples do the same, so they'll relate to that."

Stacey says she found being able to watch back and reflect on a situation quite helpful as she could see it from an outsider's point of view, which she believes is healthy for a relationship.

Viewers will also get to see the love and support Stacey and Joe give each other. Joe describes Stacey as extremely loyal, like a "mother lion".

"Don't go near her cubs, she'll have you," he says.

"She's just the most wonderful person," he says. "She's kind, she's loving. I mean there's nothing about Stacey I would change. People love her in the streets and, imagine me, I'm so lucky, I get to spend the rest of my life with her."

Joe has the ability to give everyone a bit of himself, says Stacey, which is "so magic" and he has the most incredible amount of empathy, she says.

Their parenting styles, on the other hand, are "polar opposite" she says.

"I'm aware that Stacey takes a lot of the brunt because I let [the children] do something and she's the one that has to say, 'No, you can't do that'," says Joe. "So she has to play bad cop quite a lot of the time, which I am aware of, but I just don't know any other way."

Stacey believes this stems from the fact that Joe lost his father when he was very young.

"I think that when that happens to you in your life, obviously you just want to be… fun, happy. You don't want to create any negative memories," she says.

For their family, having young children and teenagers growing up together has created something really magical.

Stacey says the teenage boys can revert to being younger again which is important because they grow up so quickly in the modern world. They have the chance to still play, with the excuse being "oh, I'm only doing it because it's with my little brother or little sister", she says.

It also gives the older boys a massive sense of responsibility, she adds.

Raising five children requires military-style organisation, says Stacey, something she learnt after having her first son at the age of 17.

"I, quite frankly, was probably the most scatty teenager you've ever known," says Stacey. "When I had Zachary, I had this one whole life that I was responsible for, and so many things that I had to do that I'd never had to consider."

She says she would get a giro - a welfare cheque - to cash in at a certain time on a Thursday at the Post Office, and she realised she could not be late as she needed the money for groceries.

Stacey relied on Zach and "asked a lot of him", she says, needing him to help her.

"I haven't done that with the younger ones, because I've had Joe," she says, "and that's just the reality of my situation. It's been different through the years."

But Zach, now 17 himself, is "probably one of the most empathetic, caring, emotionally intelligent young teenagers that I know," says Stacey.

"I feel like that has a lot to do with how we grew up together, and how life was for us in the beginning."

Having more children is not currently on Stacey's radar, she says, as her body is still recovering from having three children in five years.

"My pelvic floor is dying," she laughs. Although Joe would love to have more.

Stacey still has plans to increase their brood - but this time it is their animals.

"I literally walked into a conversation the other day and I heard 'cow'," says Joe, "and I was like, 'No way, we can't have a cow'."

"We were just throwing a few ideas around," says Stacey. "I would love to have animals and make our own milk and collect our own eggs and grow our own vegetables.

"That's a dream of mine - but in the future. At the moment, we're still rearing children."

Stacey & Joe starts on Tuesday 1 April at 20:00 BST on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.