Simone’s fury
The cricketing great is in hot water again when it comes to love, lust and the ladies!
He’s the King of Spin on the cricket pitch and it seems Shane Warne is pretty highly ranked in the spin stakes in his personal life, too.
After the cricketer declared in his recently released autobiography that his time with actress Elizabeth Hurley was the best of his life, it’s caused uproar with his former wife Simone Callahan, who’s been left seething and has lashed out at the pair.
“I can honestly say that the time I had with Elizabeth were the happiest years of my life,” Shane boldly states in his new tell-all book No Spin.
It’s a huge slap in the face for Simone, who raised a family with Shane. The 48-year-old revealed in a bombshell interview how she discovered Shane was romancing the British actress and Estee Lauder model when she saw photos of them kissing at a London hotel shortly before Christmas 2010.
“I only knew Liz Hurley as the funny English actress from the Austin Powers movie until I saw Shane kissing her. I had no idea he was with her in London,” Simone said. “I remember getting up in the morning, turning on the computer and seeing those photos.
“I was shocked and embarrassed for the children because it was so public and this was just before the holidays. It ruined our Christmas.”
CONFRONTING PICS
The mother of Shane’s three kids – Brooke, 21, Jackson, 19, and 16-year-old Summer – admitted she was at home in Melbourne with them when she saw the confronting photographs that crushed her family to the core.
“Shane is a little kid, like Peter Pan, and he doesn’t think about how his actions will impact other people,” she said.
“You would think that a mother like Liz Hurley would be more mature and respectful of my kids, but she wasn’t.”
Simone maintains she had separated from Shane days before the snaps surfaced, but few people knew about their split at the time.
She recalled how Shane, 49, described 53-year-old Liz as “beautiful” when he first met her while they were still together and is even uncertain as to whether their relationship started before she and Shane had officially ended things. The cricketer insists that was not the case.
When they called it a day, the couple had been together for 15 years but decided to hold off on breaking the news to their children until after Christmas.
“That is why it was so upsetting when the photos came out. I don’t know what he and Liz were thinking,” Simone explained.
“I guess they were just caught up in themselves and the fun they were having without thinking
‘Shane and Liz were selfish. The kids were hurt and upset’
about anyone else. They were selfish. The kids were hurt and upset.”
To Simone’s dismay, Shane’s new fiancee showed up unannounced to their son Jackson’s football game in Melbourne in 2012.
“She did not apologise for what happened,” Simone said, unimpressed. “She never has.”
Shane and Liz ended their engagement in 2013 but remain extremely friendly and, as Woman’s Day recently reported, have been flirting on social media, where the bowler recently referred to his ex as “a very close and dear friend”.
And despite her fury, even Simone admits she doubts Shane’s romance with Liz is totally over.