LIZ HURLEY ON
Elizabeth Hurley’s relationship with Steve Bing had ended in acrimony and her engagement to Shane Warne was called off after things had “fizzled out”, but when they died it still hit her hard.
And as she reflected on the loss of her two former lovers – Bing to suicide and Warne to a heart attack – she admitted learning a lot about herself.
Liz, 58, said: “You do realise how you could have been more there for people. How can you not?
“Each time something bad happens – and obviously as we get older, sadly, of course, we do lose more people – I think it does remind you how much more time we need to give to the people we care for.
“And I try, it’s made a difference to me every time I have lost someone that you just value more who you have got.”
She dated American businessman Bing for 18 months from 2000, and gave birth to their son Damian in April 2002, months after they had split up. He initially denied being Damian’s father, but a DNA test confirmed he was.
He and his estranged son had re-established contact before his suicide, aged 55, in June 2020.
Speaking of the impact of his death on her and Damian, Liz said: “Well, it’s just so awful, isn’t it, when you lose someone, whether it’s by this means or a natural death. We had both to deal with.
“No one suggests you could necessarily make a difference yourself, but you still maybe could have been kinder.”
After her split from Bing, Liz began dating the Indian businessman Arun Nayar, who she married in 2007. It was after their divorce in 2011 that she began seeing Australian cricketer Warne.
By the end of 2011 they were engaged and by 2012, they were enjoying family life with Damian in their new home in Herefordshire.
But in December 2013, it was revealed that the couple had decided to split. In an interview with the Mirror in 2020, Warne said the relationship had simply run its course.
He described the years they spent together as the happiest of his life, adding: “It wasn’t something that she or I did wrong, it just fizzled out.”
When he died of a heart attack, aged 52, during a holiday in Thailand in 2022, both Liz and Damian were utterly devastated.
And as she had when Bing had died, Liz put her own feelings to one side to help her son cope with the loss.
She said: “It is really hard. As a mummy, obviously you care more about how your child will take it than how you do. So you do have to put your own feelings on a back burner a little bit. But on the other hand, in both those cases, of course, I was the one in a relationship with them, not Damian.
“So it’s just hard because I guess you have to still keep everyone together, because you are Mummy.”
The actress was speaking in a US interview with Andy Cohen on Sirius XM to promote Damian’s film directorial debut, Strictly Confidential, which stars his mother and is now available on UK streamers, following its London premiere.
Damian, 22, told Cohen how he faced different emotions around the death of his biological father and Warne, who he called his stepdad.
Damian said: “There is such different kinds of grief. When my biological father took his own life, it was a confusing, horrific, devastating, horrible time. Whereas when Shane, my stepfather died naturally of a heart attack, it was just horrific, different, it was just a different type of grief. It was devastatingly sad and appalling.”
Damian was comforted by his mother and surprised by the reaction he received from people on social media.
He said: “I think there’s no rule book. Grief is a really important thing.
“I never read comments. I never read message requests. I never read anything on social media. but I read every single one of the messages I was sent around that time from people being so kind, people who had been through exactly the same thing. And every single one of them stuck with me, and I’ve replied to as many as I can – just so kind.
“And there’s so much horror in the world, you really realise it when something like that happens. Because anyone who’s been touched by grief, by suicide, by loss, feels it and speaks.”
Damian was told by his mother of Bing’s suicide moments before he saw reports of it online. He feels that the