Fergie says Josh Duhamel's alleged stripper tryst made marriage stronger

Fergie told Oprah Winfrey that Josh Duhamel's alleged stripper tryst made their communication and marriage stronger.

"It was difficult," Fergie said on "Oprah's Next Chapter" of the reports. "When you go through difficult times, it really makes you stronger as a unit, as a partnership. It does for us, anyways. Our love today is a deeper love, definitely."

Fergie and Duhamel got married on January 10, 2009 after dating for five years. The couple met when the Black Eyed Peas performed on the actor's NBC show "Las Vegas."

Nine months after their wedding, tabloid stories surfaced which claimed that Duhamel had a one-night stand with an Atlanta stripper named Nicole Forrester.

"We're stronger today definitely because of anything difficult that's happened with us," Fergie said of the incident. "We deal with it, we communicate; communicating's the most important thing."

Though Duhamel adamantly denied the reports, Forrester issued an apology to Fergie through Extra ! and said she thought nobody would find out and was upset to be labeled a home wrecker.

Fergie stood by Duhamel, who last year denied that his wife had undergone plastic surgery. The "New Year's Eve" actor spoke highly of Fergie and told Oprah that though it was her sexiness that drew him in, it was her personality which made him fall in love.

"Obviously I love to watch her perform and I love all the music and I was attracted to her initially because of... how sexy she was and the hotness. But we haven't been together for nine years because of that," Duhamel told Oprah.

"It's because she's, you know... she's just we grew up in very similar ways, you know? My mother was a teacher. Both of her parents were teachers," Duhamel said of his wife. "We both had to work for what we got. We're both Catholic. There were a lot of things that were really compatible between us. But at the end of the day, she's just an amazing girl."

Fergie, whose real name is Stacy Ann Ferguson got her start on the children's television series "Kids Incorporated." Fergie joined the Black Eyed Peas in 2001 and has also released a solo album called "The Dutchess."

Duhamel rose to fame after appearing in the 2004 film, "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!" He has since appeared in films like "Transformers," "The Romantics," "When in Rome," "Life as We Know It" and "New Year's Eve."

"Oprah's Next Chapter" featuring Fergie and Josh Duhamel airs on Sunday, October 21 at 9 p.m. Central on OWN. Watch clips from the show below.

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