Art collector Charles Saatchi arrives at his home in west London.
London Evening Standard/London
The former wife of Charles Saatchi spoke out in his defence yesterday, saying he was never “physically abusive.”
Kay Saatchi, a US-born art collector, made her comments two days after her ex-husband accepted a police caution for assaulting his wife Nigella Lawson. Pictures showed him with his hands around Lawson’s neck during a row outside Mayfair restaurant Scott’s.
Kay told the Standard: “Whilst Charles has always had his faults, I never experienced him to be physically abusive. He may be hard work, but I feel he is being treated unfairly. This should not be part of his legacy.”
She is Saatchi’s second wife and they were married for 11 years until a divorce in 2001. Then he married cookery writer Lawson.
Kay fought a £1mn divorce battle on the grounds of his “unreasonable behaviour”. Their daughter Phoebe chose to live with her father and Lawson. After the divorce, Kay said her ex-husband was “a man of crushes ... You start out as his geisha girl, but that rapidly stops. He lost interest and I got sick of his bad moods.”
Saatchi, 70, a Standard columnist, refused to comment as he left his Chelsea home yesterday. Earlier, he dismissed pictures of him holding his wife by the throat on June 9 as a “playful tiff”, saying she was tearful because they had been arguing. The art collector and former advertising mogul said he voluntarily went to a police station on Monday, and confessed to assaulting Lawson, as he did not want the affair “hanging over all of us for months.”
Lawson, 53, has so far refused to comment. She has not been seen in public since leaving the family home with her children on Sunday. However, on her Facebook page today she posted a recipe for tiramisini, a coffee liqueur pudding. More than 243 people posted “likes” for the recipe. One comment read: “It’s always great to hear from you, now more than ever.” Another person wrote: “We love you Nigella, I hope you know we support you!!”
Another post read: “I don’t understand why you don’t tip one of these tiramisus on his head and walk out.”