UKIP LEADER’S WIFE ON HER PAIN I thought we were a happy family. I’d no clue he had been cheating ..my world has fallen apart
THE wife of UKIP leader Henry Bolton today tells of her pain and dismay at his relationship with a 25-year-old topless model and says: “My world has fallen apart.”
In a devastating interview that may heap pressure on him to quit, Tatiana Smurova-Bolton reveals he scoffed “No, no, no” when she asked just two weeks ago if he was leaving her.
That turned out to be a lie. And Tatiana says she was left “speechless” by pictures taken in her home and showing Bolton’s new love Jo Marney.
In one, his mistress puts her feet up on a stool which had been bought to mark a wedding anniversary.
And of Bolton’s “terrible betrayal”, Tatiana adds: “What kind of person runs away to sleep with another woman, leaving their two small children over Christmas? I’m still breastfeeding his child for goodness sake.
“I feel as though I’ve been thrown in a cold ocean and I’m just trying to stay on the surface.”
Tatiana also shares precious photos of her own to nail “lies” that she and her husband had already separated.
One shows a smiling Bolton, 54, resting a hand on his wife’s knee.
It was taken three days he was pictured with his arm around Jo.
The father of three has since said his Russian-born wife had been living abroad since July. He insisted there was no “clandestine affair”.
KISSES
However, Tatiana, 42, reveals Bolton sent her a text with kisses on Christmas Eve. And in an exclusive interview, she says she had no idea her husband of six years had left her for another woman until December 30 – when he told her by
“I thought we were a happy family,” Tatiana says. “Until this week I never imagined he was going to end our relationship. I had absolutely no clue he has been cheating on me. My world has fallen apart.
“When you have been with someone for so long and have supported him through so much and always been there for him, you feel so betrayed on every single level.
“What made it worse is the lies. He told journalists his wife is ‘fully aware of what’s been going on’. No, I am not.
“I found out about his so-called ‘change in relationship status’ when I read online the statement he put out to UKIP members.”
Tatiana has been living in Vienna since the end of July, when her maternity leave ended after having second daughter Victoria in May 2016.
She and Bolton made the joint decision that he would stay in the UK to fight the UKIP leadership contest, while she returned to work at the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe – where they met in 2006.
The UKIP role was unpaid – and the family needed Tatiana’s income. But the couple spoke or texted daily, Bolton visited twice – and Tatiana and their girls visited him at home in Folkestone, Kent, in October. On December 18 he flew to Vienna for Christmas. Over the following days he attended nursery parties for Victoria and eldest daughter Lucinda, four. Then, on December 23, Bolton delivered a bombshell, telling Tatiana he was returning home that night. She says: “I was shocked. I said ‘I don’t understand. Are you leaving us?’ But he was horrified by the suggestion and said ‘No, no, no’. “He told me he was stressed about not being in the UK to deal with his work, that when he is with us he is not able to concentrate on what’s happening in the party.
BEGGING
“I was begging him to stay, for the sake of the children, even just for one day, but he wouldn’t change his mind.
“Our eldest daughter was crying, but that still didn’t stop him. It wasn’t like he left and slammed the door. There wasn’t any conflict. No row.
“As he was leaving he gave me a hug and told me sometimes in life there are crises and this was clearly one of those and that he was sorry.”
The next day Tatiana received a text message from him with four kisses.
“I was so relieved,” she says. “It reassured me that it was a work crisis and not a crisis in our relationship.
“But then I heard nothing, not even on Christmas Day. By the 29th I was so worried about whether he was even alive, I texted asking if he was okay.
“A couple of hours later he replied saying he was fine and that he hoped I had a nice trip to Russia.”
Bolton, who has a daughter aged 32