You prima donna! Tory MP’s opera singer wife in virus spat with stricken health minister
OUTSPOKEN health minister Nadine Dorries is embroiled in an extraordinary coronavirus war of words with a Brexit-backing Tory MP and his opera-singer wife.
Former I’m A Celebrity contestant Miss Dorries, 62, was diagnosed with the virus on Monday and is now self-isolating at home.
But in a Twitter spat, she has been publically accused of passing it on to fellow Tory MP Andrew Bridgen by sitting next to him at a Westminster tea room.
Mr Bridgen’s wife Nevena – a Serbian-born opera singer – says the minister has endangered her family by not mentioning him to health officials tracing people with whom she’d had contact. Hitting back, Miss Dorries insisted: ‘I did not sit next to your husband.’
The row escalated when Mrs Bridgen ‘liked’ a tweet calling for Miss Dorries’ arrest. Weighing in himself, ardent Brexiteer Mr Bridgen accused the minister of lying and hit out: ‘My wife is an opera singer; she really is a prima donna, whereas Nadine only acts like a prima donna.’
Mr Bridgen says he has virus symptoms and is isolating himself at home after he claims Miss Dorries sat next to him in Parliament’s tea rooms last Thursday.
The MP for North West Leicestershire has kept to one side of his home, while his wife, son Blake and 75-year-old mother-in-law share another. His fears prompted
Mrs Bridgen yesterday to accuse Miss Dorries of leaving the family ‘jeopardised’. The 55-year-old wrote on Twitter: ‘Why did you not tell them that you set (sic) next to my husband on Thursday in a tea room and that he can’t get the test now! I have the baby and a 75-year-old mother jeopardised. ‘You were treated but no one is coming to help us!’ Miss Dorries insisted Mr Bridgen was on another table ‘not close to me’, adding: ‘He text[ed] me and told me he had sat next to me, I was too ill to discuss but not sick enough not to know that wasn’t true. I told him if he was worried to call 111.’
Mrs Bridgen replied: ‘I wish you to get well but let me tell you. You absolutely did sit next to my husband in the tea room. Did you tell Dominic Raab or Sec of State & ministers to call 111 too? Or is this just a recommendation for backbenchers & ordinary people?’ Mrs Bridgen, who married the MP in 2017 after they met through friends, then liked a tweet calling for Miss Dorries to be arrested.
Sources also said there were rumours that Miss Dorries had contracted coronavirus after skiing in northern Italy during the February half-term, which she denies. Last night Miss Dorries, the MP for Mid-Bedfordshire, said her 84-year-old mother had also caught the virus. She said: ‘She’s a pre-war baby, doing OK. Made of strong stuff.’ Twice-married Mr Bridgen, who said witnesses could prove Miss Dorries sat next to him, added: ‘Why would she lie about this?’
His second wife moved to London from Belgrade to study at the Guildhall School of Music and runs the Wives of Westminster website, a lifestyle hub aimed at ‘fashionable, sophisticated women with brains, hearts and style’.
Mr Bridgen, a father of three, separated from his first wife, Jackie, in 2011.
‘Jeopardised my family’