Cliff torment over false sex abuse claims
Singer barely slept for two years
SIR Cliff Richard has told how his life, health and career were ripped apart during two years of hell as he battled false historical sex claims.
The singer said he barely slept as he faced the accusations.
Cliff, 76, said: “It was a disastrous time emotionally, so traumatic I don’t think I slept more than two hours at a time for two years.
“It hurt me so much I don’t think I can ever recover personally.”
Cliff is selling his farmhouse and vineyard in Portugal because it’s too big to manage. He told the Sunday Times’s Home magazine: “I want to live fully with what I’ve got left.”
It was at the farmhouse that he watched on TV as the BBC showed footage of detectives raiding his home in Berkshire in August 2014.
It followed an allegation that he had sexually assaulted a child at Sheffield United’s Bramall Lane stadium in 1985 – a claim he denied.
He was never arrested and in June last year, prosecutors said he would face no charges.
He has since taken legal action against the BBC and South Yorkshire police over coverage of the raid.
Cliff said: “Some people will always believe there’s no smoke without fire, to which I can only reply with something someone wrote to me, ‘Haven’t they heard of smoke machines?’”