BORIS Johnson has faced repeated questions about his complex private live several times over the years.
He has four children with his estranged wife, as well as a love child with a woman he had an affair with.
But the would-be next PM has also been dogged with unproven rumours he has at least one more child whose identity has been kept secret.
Yesterday his supporter, Tory MP Johnny Mercer, was grilled about the claims by the BBC’s Emma Barnett.
She asked: “Why do you think he has chosen not to be honest about something as basic as how many children he has?”
Mr Mercer hit back: “I think the way people will look at this is that an individual’s private life is their concern and what they are looking for is leadership for this nation out of a very difficult position.”
Boris Johnson married Allegra Mostyn-Owen in 1987 but they divorced six years later and had no children.
Very shortly afterwards he married high-flying barrister Marina Wheeler – who was already pregnant with their first child Lara Lettice, now 26.
The couple went on to have three more kids – Milo Arthur, 24, Cassia Peaches, 22, and Theodore Apollo, 20.
But they split last year after Ms Wheeler finally got fed up with her husband’s cheating.
Lara was heard calling her father a “selfish bastard” and adding: “Mum is finished with him. She will never take him back now.”
Boris Johnson had a short-lived fling with Helen Macintyre, the wife of a property developer, in 2009.
She gave birth to a daughter, Stephanie – said to be the spitting image of Boris – later that year.
Ms Macintyre sued a newspaper which reported on Boris’ love child, but lost as judges ruled the public had a right to know about the issue.
It wasn’t his first affair – an earlier relationship with colleague Petronella Wyatt went on for several years, resulting in two aborted pregnancies.
Boris was sacked from Michael Howard’s front bench for lying about the fling.
Emma Barnett said yesterday: “There was a court case in 2013 where a woman lost a privacy case.
“The judge said it was in the public interest while he was in office that he had an extramarital affair with a woman who later gave birth to a daughter while he was married.
“It then came out in that court case that it was alleged he had another child out of wedlock. So it is between five and six children that our future Prime Minister has.”
The identity of the alleged sixth child has not been made clear, and Boris has always refused to comment.
After splitting from his second wife, Boris Johnson began a relationship with PR expert Carrie Symonds.
He is now living in the South London flat of Miss Symonds, the Tory party’s former head of press.
She is expected to move into 10 Downing Street if her boyfriend becomes Prime Minister.
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