Self trying to strip my home by court order, says estranged wife
WILL SELF’S estranged wife has accused him of emotional abuse, claiming that he is trying to strip her home of possessions via a court order.
Deborah Orr, a journalist, laid out the “trauma” of their separation in a series of tweets that won her widespread sympathy. “My ex wants to divide up the contents of the former marital home by coming round, when I’m not there, putting a red dot on absolutely anything he wants, then getting me to organise it all into a place where he can have it picked up,” she wrote.
“I’ve given him a list of his things. They aren’t the things he wants. He’s been litigating against me for more than two years, and I’m broke. I’ve been trying to walk away with nothing but trauma. He wants a big finale.”
Friends rallied around her, with the writer and comedian Jenny Eclair replying: “Buy your own red dots and make sure you put one on all the books he ever wrote – you want all of those out of the house for starters.”
David Baddiel joked Orr should put a red dot on Umbrella, Self ’s 2012 novel, which many found impenetrable.
When one of Orr’s followers suggested she read an advice leaflet on how to co-operate with a former partner to divide up possessions, Orr replied: “‘Co-operation’ is not a word long enough for my ex to have any truck with.” Another follower said of Self: “He seems to be confusing divorce with Ikea.”
Orr wrote that she had “changed the locks long ago” and is suffering from a form of post-traumatic stress disorder. “I wonder why?” she said. “His ‘compassionate writings’ on mental illness make me want to throw up.”
The estranged couple have two children. Self, who also has two children from his first marriage, currently lives in an ex-council flat in south London.
Self found notoriety in 1997 when he confessed to snorting heroin on the prime minister’s plane. He was promptly sacked from his job as a newspaper columnist. “So I was smacked out on the prime minister’s jet, big deal,” he said.
He gave up drugs two years later, but said they had not had a detrimental effect on his health.
Self declined to comment on Orr’s claims.