The farm sprawls across 50 acres of rolling Hertfordshire hills like a green dream stitched from wild meadows and weathered oak barns, the kind of place where the wind carries the scent of fresh hay and freedom. Dubbed “Paw Haven Sanctuary,” it’s Pete Wicks’ £5 million love letter to the voiceless – a sprawling rescue haven with heated kennels, agility courses carved from reclaimed ship timber, and a pond where ducks and dogs paddle in uneasy truce. The tattooed TOWIE heartthrob, 37, didn’t just fund it with his reality TV millions and podcast proceeds; he broke ground himself last spring, sleeves rolled up, calluses blooming on palms more used to nightclub handshakes.

And at the heart of this idyll? Thirteen scrappy miracles, each a whiskered survivor yanked from the jaws of despair. They arrived in Essex last month, airlifted from a nightmare puppy mill on the Romanian border – a concrete hell of rusted cages and shallow graves where breeders cull the “unprofitable” weaklings. These pups, a motley crew of lanky lurchers and stubby staffies, were the rejects: the runts too small for sale, the ones with twisted legs and haunted eyes that stared through you like they’d already seen the end. Starved, mange-riddled, ribs like xylophones under threadbare fur. Vets gave them 48 hours. Pete gave them eternity.

“I loaded them into the van myself,” Pete says now, voice thick as he scratches behind the ears of Luna, a brindle girl who arrived with a broken pelvis and a refusal to wag. They’re in the farm’s sun-dappled orchard, where the pups chase butterflies in a chorus of yips that sounds like joy rediscovered. “Thirteen little fighters, crammed into a single crate the size of a microwave. One was already cold when I touched her. But these girls – they looked at me like, ‘Mate, don’t let us go.’ And I didn’t.”

The rescue wasn’t a whim. Pete’s been a dog man since Eric, his Lithuanian stray, crashed into his life six years ago like a furry freight train – all elbows and loyalty, the kind of mutt who’d chew your slippers but die for your secrets. Then Peggy, the Frenchie with the underbite that could melt glaciers. They’re the anchors in Pete’s storm-tossed world: the breakups splashed across tabloids, the Strictly scandals that left him scrolling therapy apps at 3 a.m., the gnawing ache of mates lost to the bottle or the blade. “Dogs don’t judge,” he’s said a hundred times on his Staying Relevant podcast. “They just love. No questions. No fine print.”

But Paw Haven? That’s next-level. Pete poured every penny from his Celebs Go Dating residuals into the pot, then sweet-talked donors – from TOWIE alums to anonymous City suits – to top it up. The farm’s got vet suites with MRI scanners, a hydrotherapy pool where Luna now doggy-paddles like an Olympian, and a “freedom field” ringed by hawthorn hedges where the pups can bolt without leashes or fear. No-kill policy, naturally. Adoptions only to screened families. And for the ones too scarred for sofas? Lifetime sanctuary, romping forever under Essex skies.

The handover was cinematic. Romanian rescuers, faces gaunt from endless raids, drove the van across three borders, Pete waiting at dawn on a fog-shrouded airstrip near Luton. He cracked the crate door, and out tumbled chaos: a black-and-tan whirlwind named Shadow nipping at heels, a shivering white puff called Ghost burrowing into his jacket. Thirteen souls, each tagged with a horror story – dumped in ditches, pried from slaughter-bound trucks, the mill’s “waste” that somehow clung to life. Pete’s team – vets, trainers, a tattooed nutritionist named Jax who brews organic kibble in a converted stable – swarmed them with blankets and bottles. By nightfall, the first tails thumped.

Social media ate it up. Pete’s Instagram, 1.2 million strong, lit with Reels of the pups’ arrivals: slow-mo montages of matted fur transforming to glossy coats, set to Luke Bryan’s “That’s My Kind of Trouble.” #PawHaven13 trended for 48 hours, fans flooding the comments: “You’re a legend, Pete – these babies hit me harder than TOWIE drama.” Donations poured in – £180,000 in the first week alone, enough for a solar-powered perimeter fence and a pack of those indestructible chew toys.

Lock-in nurses cooed over the “before” pics, the skeletal frames that looked like X-rays come to life. “From death row to doggy daycare,” one viral post captioned. Pete, ever the showman, live-streamed the first group bath: suds flying, pups splashing, his laugh booming as Ghost shook water from her ears like a malfunctioning sprinkler. “Look at you lot – proper rockstars now,” he grinned, toweling off a wriggling armful. The farm’s first adoption – Shadow to a retired copper in Chelmsford – happened last Friday, Pete officiating with a mock vow: “Love her fierce, or I’ll hunt you down with a tennis ball.”

It’s the stuff of redemption arcs. Pete Wicks: from Essex lad with a lip ring and a trail of exes to canine crusader, trading spray tans for spay-neuters. He’s trekked to South Korea’s meat farms, hauling 170 souls to safety with Humane Society crews; romped through Romanian strays with French Bulldog Saviours. Pete Wicks: For Dogs’ Sake, his U&W docuseries, pulled 2.7 million viewers last month, charting his summer at Basildon’s Dogs Trust – bottle-feeding the “Potato Pups” (abandoned in a crisp packet, bless ’em) and holding vigil over a pug named Murphy post-biopsy. “It’s not charity,” he told The Guardian then. “It’s payback. Dogs saved me when humans couldn’t.”

But here, amid the apple blossoms and the pups’ playful tussles, the tone fractures. Pete’s mid-sentence, ruffling Ghost’s ears, when he goes quiet. The orchard’s birdsong feels suddenly too loud. He stares at the horizon, where the farm’s boundary melts into mist-shrouded woods, and drops the sentence that sucks the air from the moment:

“I built this place for them… because I couldn’t save my little brother.”

The words hang like smoke. Pete’s never said it public. Not in the TOWIE confessionals, not in the Strictly diaries, not even in the raw hours after his nan’s funeral last year, when mates found him chain-smoking on Brighton Pier. His brother – Billy, two years junior, the quiet shadow to Pete’s flash – OD’d at 19, a heroin haze in a Hackney squat back in ’07. Pete was 19 too, already dabbling in the scene, the pair of them bunking raves and crashing on mates’ floors. “He was my wingman,” Pete murmurs now, voice a gravel whisper. “The one who’d drag me home when I got too lairy. I found him too late that night. Blue-lipped, gone. And I thought, ‘That’s it. I’m the fuck-up who let it happen.’”

The pups sense the shift, clustering at his boots – Luna licking his knuckles, a tiny terrier mix named Spark pawing his knee like she’s absolving him. Pete scoops her up, burying his face in her scruff. “These girls? They were written off too. Like Billy was. Society’s scraps, the ones no one fights for. I see him in their eyes – that flicker of ‘Why me?’ And I think, if I can give them this” – he sweeps an arm at the farm, the endless green – “maybe I rewrite that ending. For them. For him.”

It’s the unexpected gut-punch no one saw coming. Pete Wicks, the bloke who moonlights as a rom-com lead in his own life, isn’t just rescuing dogs. He’s chasing ghosts. The farm’s not a vanity project; it’s a vigil. The £5 million? Blood money from a youth spent chasing highs that hollowed him out. The 13 pups? Proxies for the brother he couldn’t pull from the brink, the one whose absence echoes in every empty collar hook.

He wipes his eyes on Spark’s fur, mustering a half-grin. “Sounds heavy, yeah? But watch this.” He sets her down, whistles sharp. The pack erupts – a joyful stampede, tails whipping like metronomes. Luna vaults a log, Ghost cartwheels into a somersault, the others piling on in a furry avalanche. Pete laughs, real and ragged, joining the fray on hands and knees. “See? They don’t dwell. They just live. And that’s the lesson Billy’s still teaching me.”

As the sun dips, painting the meadows gold, Paw Haven hums with life – barks blending with birds, the promise of kibble and belly rubs. Thirteen pups, once whispers from death, now thunder through the grass. And Pete? He’s right there with them, scars and all, turning one man’s haunting regret into a haven that howls back: redemption isn’t a solo sprint. It’s a pack run, tails high, forever free.