Mark Owen has been blasted by his former lover who claims she was "thrown to the lions" when he decided to confess to their affair.

Neva Hanley - who had a five-year relationship with Mark while he was dating his now-wife Emma Ferguson - didn`t want the Take That star to come clean about their illicit romance in March and believes he only did so for his own selfish reasons.

Neva - who last saw Mark in February, the only time she met up with him after his marriage in October 2009 - said: "He made his choices. When everything came out, he just threw me to the lions. He didn`t even call to see if I was OK. His manager wrote to make sure I was all right. Poor guy - sometimes I wonder how many other girls he had to write to over the years."

Although Neva, 24, feels bitter about the relationship now, she admits she thought Mark, 38, was very sweet when she first met him in September 2004 at a train station in Preston, England.

The pop star befriended her as they both waited for a train and then paid for her to sit in the First Class carriage with him and took her number.

Just a couple of weeks later Mark flew Neva out to Los Angeles to stay with him, and she admits they first had sex on the third night of the trip after going for dinner and to see a movie.

She added in an interview with The Mail on Sunday newspaper: "We started kissing and ended up sleeping together. It sounds awful happening so soon. But for three days we had spoken to nobody but each other. It felt right it was very calm and easy."

Although Neva was happy in the relationship at first, she was completely unaware Mark was dating Emma.

From 2005, the dynamic between her and Mark changed, and Neva says he would often call her late in the night usually drunk and begging her to come and visit him at various hotel rooms.

She eventually became aware of his romance with Emma, but after the Take That reunion in 2005 she was happy to continue the relationship and accept a celebrity lifestyle over the next couple of years of backstage passes to the band`s shows, VIP treatment and drunken hotel sex with the star.

Neva even claims she had sex with Mark just a week after his daughter Willow Rose was born in November 2008.

She said: "He just told me he needed a cuddle and was alone."

Mark - who admitted he`d had multiple affairs when he made his public confession in March - and Emma are still together and have another child, three-year-old son Elwood.
sections: Celebrities