Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
THE STRIFE OF BRIAN
Cleese moans planet is ‘littered’ with his exes & kids are a ‘pain in the a *** ’
COMEDY legend John Cleese refuses to look on the bright side of life when it comes to parenting and his three failed marriages.
The 79-year-old, whose film hits include 1979’s The Life of Brian, said the planet is “littered” with his ex-wives and having kids is “a pain in the a***”. Referring to his Monty Python pals, he said: “Eric Idle has been married 40 years, Michael Palin 50. Everyone claps when you mention this. I say this is just a failure of imagination. I’ve been married 42 years if you add the bits together.
“Young people have kids and then spend the next 30 years looking after them. For what, I don’t know. It makes you less selfish. Basically they are a pain in the a*** as they cost a fortune and you have no control over that, and they are never grateful. But I do have a good one, the other one is OK. The planet is littered with my ex-wives.”
Cleese has spent nearly £25million in divorce settlements to date. He wed Fawlty Towers co-star Connie Booth in 1968 and they had daughter Cynthia.
He then tied the knot with American actress Barbara Trentham in 1981 and they had daughter Camilla in 1984, divorcing in 1990. Two years later, he married American psychotherapist Alyce Faye Eichelberger. They divorced in 2008 and the settlement gave her £12million in finance and assets.
Cleese’s current wife, Jennifer Wade, is 32 years his junior.
The comic also spoke about the dementia plight of Python co-star Terry Jones, 76, on comedian Marc Maron’s podcast. He said: “Terry is definitely not going to get better, according to every doctor. He gets lost so that is very sad.”