Sponsors bail out of Saatchi Gallery

HAS moneybags art collector Charles Saatchi become toxic since he was pictured with his hand at the throat of his then wife, Nigella Lawson?

I ask as sponsors seem to be abandoning his King’s Road gallery.

The company that runs Chelsea’s Saatchi Gallery, Marchill Investments, has revealed that corporate sponsorship, which made up a big slice of its turnover, plunged by £1.3 million last year — from £3.5 to £2.2 million. Former advertising executive Saatchi, 74, and Nigella, 58, divorced in 2013, with the domestic goddess claiming she was subjected to ‘ intimate terrorism’ during their ten-year marriage.

Accounts newly filed at Companies House disclose that Marchill’s overall revenue dropped from £5.4 million to £4.1 million, compared with the previous year’s bumper profit of nearly £1.2 million.