Legal row over Queen star’s £16m new home

Legendary Queen guitarist Brian May once threatened to quit his Holland Park home because of what he described as a proliferation of basement developments nearby.

His acquisition — just four months ago — of the neighbouring £16 million property to his townhouse may give him further cause for regret.

For the sale has, I can disclose, triggered an extraordinary multimillion pound High Court case involving amal Clooney’s uncle — the highly controversial businessman Ziad Takieddine.

The legal action has been initiated by nick Stoop, a financial expert, who was in a seven-year relationship with Takieddine’s blonde British ex-wife, nicola Johnson, who Stoop is now suing.

He claims he is entitled to £3.7 million following the sale of her Holland Park house to the Queen musician.

according to Stoop’s court claim, he met nicola in 2009 when she was undergoing her acrimonious divorce.

For the first three years of their subsequent relationship, Stoop claims that, at nicola’s request, he worked full-time for her — initially helping her in her divorce battle against her estranged husband.

He says it involved intense effort in england, where Takieddine put his former marital home — next to May’s — on the market for £16 million, and in France, where the divorce proceedings were under way.

Thanks to him, claims Stoop, the High Court prevented the sale of the house and made a ‘non-molestation order’ against Takieddine, forbidding him ‘from entering, or attempting to enter’ the property, or to ‘use or threaten violence’ against nicola.

STOOP alleges that nicola repeatedly assured him that he would be paid when she sold the house. even after his relationship with nicola ended in 2017, he continued working for her but claims he remained unpaid.

Sounds like the sort of saga that Brian May could set to music.