Divorces cost me £60m: Davidson
BRITISH comedian Jim Davidson has revealed that his four divorces cost him as much as £60million (€67million).
Father-of-five Davidson, 64, has been married to fifth wife Michelle Cotton since 2009. Appearing on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories, the former host of Big Break and The Generation Game said he ‘absolutely’ thought it was always the woman to blame for his failed relationships – and admitted the divorces had cost him dearly. ‘It’s how much money I’ve spent over the years. Getting on to 50, 60million must have passed through my hands,’ said Davidson. Asked how he felt about that, he told Morgan: ‘Brilliant. Thank God I had it. When I won New Faces [in 1976] I said, “Mum you’ll never have to work again as long as you live”, and she never did.’
Davidson, who was made bankrupt in 2006, was 17 when he married childhood sweetheart Sue Walpole in 1971, after she became pregnant with their daughter. They divorced the following year. He married Julie Gullick, mother of his second child, in 1981. They divorced in 1986.
Davidson has said that during that marriage he paid for an orgy with 12 sex workers at a London hotel as part of a celebrity stag do. His marriage to TV presenter Alison Holloway in 1987 ended after two years amid claims of domestic violence. Joanne Urch later alleged she had an affair with Davidson while she was 16 and he was still married to Holloway.
He had three children with former Page Three model Tracy Hilton, whom he married in 1990 and divorced in 2000. Asked by Morgan about his relationship with current wife Michelle, 47, Davidson said: ‘She is a very nice person. She’s impatient, she’s fiery like me. I hope I’m with Michelle for the rest of my life, there’s no one better I’d want to spend the rest of my life with. Liz Hurley, perhaps?’
Davidson also spoke about being arrested as part of the controversial Operation Yewtree police investigation into sex abuse allegations, which he said he found ‘pretty traumatic’.
He faced no further action but told Morgan: ‘I won’t now have a conversation with a woman in a room without someone else there. I need to protect myself. I’m easy to accuse.’
‘It was always the woman to blame’