But yesterday Isleworth Crown Court heard details of a witness statement given by Mr Saatchi on Monday.
‘During our marriage I was unaware that Nigella took drugs,’ the statement said.
‘It is only during the break-up that I became aware she had been taking drugs whilst we were married – although I was not aware of the scale of the problem.
‘I believe it was in about June 2013, at the time of the well-publicised incident at Scotts restaurant – around the same time I was told about her drug use by my daughter Phoebe.
‘It was confirmed by other people in the household.’
Great beauty, domestic goddess, single and a coke fiend? Anyone got her number?
Who’s this great beauty then? The overweight middle aged bird with the “look at my tits so you won’t notice the fat arse” strategy?
/bitchy
I’ve never understood the appeal of her. The “sexy” cooking always came across to me with the same toe-curling effect as a mother flirting with her son’s schoolfriends after one too many glasses of plonk[1]. Always got the feeling she’d be a high maintenance ball of conceit, and the coke would only make that worse.
Not as televisually repulsive as Jamie Olvier, but still, the sex appeal remains a mystery to me. Especially considering we’re talking about a woman far past her best years, who when released from foundation garments must subside vertically in a truly alarming manner.
[1] In the name of gender equality, the inverse gender scenario is at least equally valid.
I’ll just add, pointlessly, but I like typing, that while I am entirely in favour of the legalisation and consumption of all drugs, I’ve never in my life met anyone whose company was improved by their consumption of coke.
I thought it was Charlie that had some connection with coke, but perhaps I’m just remembering an old joke…
So, in retrospect then, he was well justified in giving her a slap, right?
So anyway, has she run any failed banks lately?
I agree with Ian. To make things worse her sultry, so-called sexy, style of presenting has spread. Watching Nigel Slater doing his gay version of Nigella has become embarrassing. At least, for the moment, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall hasn’t succumbed.
PS: That Charles Saatchi really is a shit.
There was a Popbitch* piece a few years ago along the lines of “unarmed TV chef has a huge coke habit”. At the time I thought it was likely to be a certain swearing Scot. Never suspected it was Nigella.
No doubt this will turn out to be another of the tabloids’ open secrets.
*Popbitch is mostly on the mark btw.
Unarmed should be unnamed. Damn autocorrect.
Saatchi ran 2 successful advertising agencies in the 80s and 90s and has since been hanging around with successful (at least in terms of being paid shedloads for the dross they turn out) artists and he didn’t realise his missus was taking coke?
Doesn’t seem quite right to me. Unless, of course, pretty much everybody he met was coked up to the eyeballs and so that was baseline behaviour. Which also seems a bit extreme.
Come to think, IIRC, the whole “food porn” style actually began with a Marks and Sparks food advertising campaign, with recipes delivered in a disturbing voice while the food was shot in gynaecological close-up, you know, “and now, spray the cream over the shaved peach”, kind of thing.
I’ve always preferred the straightforward Delia Smith “now beat it with a spoon” approach myself.
Can you take coke every day for 10 years and not end up in psychosis? I had a moderate habit in the 90s, when everyone did, and it didn’t do my sense of humour any good.
If Saatchi is a nasty piece of work it is quite likely that his spouse will be cut from similar cloth. There are exceptions–ie somebody nice stuck with somebody nasty–but I think that most choice-culled spouses will be alike with some complementary differences (nasty ones in the case of nasty people). Nigella has a pretty face but she is overweight. If she had a truly sweet, kind and warm nature that would not be so bad but I suspect she does not..
Sorry???
Saatchi and Lawson were married for ten years and he didn’t notice her alleged fondness for the old Peruvian marching powder until the marriage went tits up?
Doesn’t look like he’ll be winning an awards for being an attentive husband any time soon.
Oh well. Brace yourselves for endless hours of her fat butt on the chat show sofa whilst she explains herself. Move over Vicky Pryce. You’ve had your day.
Ian B,
I’ve always preferred the straightforward Delia Smith “now beat it with a spoon” approach myself.
It’s why Delia has quit TV. She’s interested in cooking, not selling a lifestyle, and that’s not what the TV companies want.
So, she’s working online now, where she can run a cookery school showing recipes and techniques.
“I’ve always preferred the straightforward Delia Smith “now beat it with a spoon” approach myself.”
Are we still discussing cooking methods, or have we moved on to other matters?
Perhaps he thought those traces of white powder was icing sugar or something. Plausible.
@GlenDorran I thought for a moment you were referring to the Michelin starred chef, Michael Caines. To be far he is actually a one-armed chef not an unarmed chef. 🙂
I had a moderate habit in the 90s, when everyone did…
Puts me in mind of this.
Can’t say I care if she wants to honk up fat trails of chisel. Found her quite sexy in the early days, but the cookery on the tele was never up to much (although I laughed myself sick at her last show: “And people just can’t get enough of my ‘meatza'”) though I’d give an honourable mention for the books, which taught my wife to cook pretty well. I prefer proper chefs meself (Simon Hopkinson and his ilk) or the classics like Lizzie David.
I thought for a moment you were referring to the Michelin starred chef, Michael Caines. To be far he is actually a one-armed chef not an unarmed chef.
And not a lot of people know that… 🙂
Tim –
I think her phone number is not the only 7-digit figure you need to get in touch with the ‘single’ lady.
It’s funny, isn’t it, how charmless, ugly men like to deprecate spirited, good-looking women. I wonder why that might be?
>but I like typing
We never noticed, Ian, really!
>that while I am entirely in favour of the legalisation and consumption of all drugs, I’ve never in my life met anyone whose company was improved by their consumption of coke.
Depends on whether they give you any or not.
Nigella’s ‘fat’ and has a coke habit? Even with her famed culinary arts, I doubt that’s possible.
Seems to me there’s been an awful lot of reporting of what the allegation is, but a lot less of who is making it and why. It appears to be one of the more implausible stories told by a defendant on trial, but it’s being reported as if it were gospel.
@Dave: it seems to be told more by Saatchi in an e-mail than by the accused. Perhaps someone should remind him what happened to Vicky Price when she sought revenge against an ex-spouse (just in case somebody should, heavens forfend, interpret his action in such a no doubt inaccurate and unjust way).
Dearieme>
The actual quote, according to the BBC is:
“Of course now the Grillos will get off on the basis that you [and your daughter] were so off your heads on drugs that you allowed the sisters to spend whatever they liked and yes I believe every word they have said.”
Seems clear to me that the story originates with the defendants. That Saatchi either believes it, or professes to believe it, doesn’t mean it’s his allegation.
Rubenesque and on coke ? Never heard of that before. It’s an appetite suppressant and watching Nigella on TV devour her own dishes convinces me that all her appetites are exuberantly unrestrained.
romeolima>
Quite. I think these pictures rather thoroughly disprove the allegation (possibly NSFW, probably NSWhileEating):
Nigella in a burkini
romeolima
Well, James Gandolfini managed to snark his way through half of Bolivia for fifteen years whilst never turning down the offer of a canoli.
… never turning down the offer of a canoli
Well, everyone knows you’re supposed to leave the gun but take the cannoli.
If Saatchi had only recently suspected his wife of doing coke it does make a much more plausible scenario for the restaurant “violence”. Nigella slips out to the loo, on her return her husband is suspicious she might have been having a quiet snort (maybe after promising to give it up), Husband hold wife’s head (against her will) so that he can look up her nose, harsh words follow, wife leaves restaurant in tears.
Sounds more plausible than husband attacking wife in public restaurant and also explains husband’s reluctance to explain himself.
Arthur, hadn’t thought of that. It makes a lot of sense.
Arthur>
Have a look at the various pictures that come up on GIS for ‘Nigella attacked’. Some of them are consistent with your theory, but there are others that are much more consistent with Saatchi simply having lost it. (Maybe he was on coke?) I have no idea about the order of events, but there’s one where he has his hand over her mouth; put that together with the pics of him choking her, and it seems plausible he was trying to shut her up.
And really, I don’t think his reluctance to explain himself is evidence either way. I’d be pretty reluctant to explain myself if I’d been caught beating my wife in public.
Well, I’m glad to see that the commenters aren’t coke heads.
Mind you, it may be that Interested was just un- when he read (or did not read) my comment.
@Dave: “Seems clear to me that…” – it astonishes me that anyone could think that anything about this business is clear. Still, if you choose to believe Saatchi, I can’t argue. Advertising man shades the truth somewhat: unheard of!
“single and a coke fiend? ” … being a druggie has nothing to recommend it to others, nothing at all, drugs are always about me me me, anybody else gets less, even if only a little less, its always less.
dearieme>
Did you read my comment the wrong way up? I said that I wouldn’t take anything Saatchi says on the subject at face value.
The “sexy” cooking always came across to me with the same toe-curling effect as a mother flirting with her son’s schoolfriends after one too many glasses of plonk[1]. Always got the feeling she’d be a high maintenance ball of conceit, and the coke would only make that worse.
… who when released from foundation garments must subside vertically in a truly alarming manner.
You should write for the Daily Mail Female section!
Ian B, as an anti-Puritan, I would have thought Nigella Lawson’s love of rich food would have made her your kind of woman. She hardly seems very PC, either, with her posh accent and general approach. But I suspect her poshness is what repels. Am I right? And oh god, she went to Oxbridge!
Yes, she is well put together and has a very pretty face. Your general comment strikes me as rather unworthy of you.
I go for the Mediterranean brainy woman type, in fact. I married one. You can keep Delia Smith but then I can’t stand Norwich City, being an Ipswich Town man.