Shamed PR guru Clifford dies after collapsing in cell

HE was once a celebrity in his own right, enjoying a champagne lifestyle and raking in millions as the biggest stars’ go-to PR guru.

But Max Clifford, who had counted The Beatles, Muhammad Ali and Frank Sinatra among his clients, died broke and a disgraced sex offender yesterday after suffering a heart attack in jail. The 74-year-old, who was serving eight years for indecent assaults on teenage girls, was declared dead in hospital. He is said to have collapsed on Thursday in his cell in Category C Littlehey Prison, Cambs, and again the next day. Clifford was the first celebrity convicted under Operation Yewtree following the Jimmy Savile scandal.

Born in 1943 in Surrey, he left school at 15 and trained as a journalist, working for EMI in 1962 before setting up Max Clifford Associates in 1970. He helped launch The Beatles by promoting debut single Love Me Do when record bosses were ambivalent. And his work was immortalised when a tabloid paper published the headline Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster – a story Clifford later admitted was a complete fabrication.

Clifford gained a reputation for getting stars in his stable maximum exposure. Beyond the glitz, his list included controversial figures such as OJ Simpson.

He also represented Kerry Katona, who fired him after her slurred car-crash interview on ITV’S This Morning in 2008.

After 50 years in showbiz, claims of sex abuse began to emerge. Days after the 2012 inquiry started, Clifford said that in the 1960s and 1970s, some stars “never asked for anybody’s birth certificate”.

His fall from grace was cemented in 2014, when he was found guilty of indecent assaults on four girls, aged 14 to 19, between 1977 and 1984. After he was jailed, BBC star Louis Theroux said he regretted not being able to “shed more light” on the assaults when he made a documentary about Clifford in 2002.

Clifford’s first wife Liz died in 2003 and the pervert, a self-confessed “ringmaster” at sex parties he organised, wed his former PA Jo Westwood, 54, in 2010. She divorced him 18 days after he was jailed.