SAATCHI USED DAUGHTER TO RUIN NIGELLA
Ruthless ploy to get teen to help expose wife’s ‘daily drug habit’
CHARLES SAATCHI cynically used his 18-year-old daughter Phoebe in a desperate bid to smear Nigella Lawson over her use of illegal drugs, The Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal today.
The embittered advertising mogul persuaded his former wife, Kay, and their daughter to go public with a damning statement claiming Ms Lawson had used drugs ‘regularly and heavily each night’ months before her use of cocaine and cannabis were revealed in court.
An explosive document, which was endorsed by Phoebe and Kay, claims:
Nigella was a habitual user of drugs and would take them every night for ‘an hour after dinner, and another hour before bed’;
drug use became a ‘permanent feature’ of her lifestyle and alienated her from her stepdaughter, Phoebe, who refused to take part;
she would ask staff to prepare large joints of strong cannabis for her to smoke while her husband was asleep;
she would cover up the effects of cannabis and other illegal drugs by telling Charles she had taken sleeping tablets;
she also used scented candles to cover the smell and even installed an air fragrance system in her London home to keep her habit secret from her husband.
The fresh revelations come as Ms Lawson gives her first interview since her former housekeepers were found not guilty of a £685,000 credit card fraud.
She told the Mail on Sunday’s TV Week magazine that she has ‘toughened up’ in the last year, adding in a statement sent through her publicist Mark Hutchinson: ‘I will survive this and move forward. I just want to focus on family life and work.’
In court earlier this month, Ms Lawson admitted snorting cocaine six times – to help deal with her late husband John Diamond’s terminal illness and when subjected to ‘intimate terrorism’ by Mr Saatchi. She also admitted cannabis use but has categorically denied she was a ‘habitual drug user’.
Last night friends of the TV chef described claims that she used drugs every night as ‘ludicrous’.
Leaking the document to the Mail on Sunday demonstrates the extraordinary lengths to which Mr Saatchi was prepared to go in order to destroy
‘Enticing Phoebe into a druggy world’
his wife’s reputation.
The sensational statement, partly written by Kay Saatchi – Charles’s second wife – was sent in July, after the now infamous picture of him with his hands around Nigella’s throat emerged, leading to the couple’s divorce.
It begins: ‘I am furious that my daughter, Phoebe, was put into a dangerous environment with the heavy drug use of Nigella.’
She adds: ‘[Nigella] tried to involve [my] daughter in this arrangement but she refused, but kept it quiet from her father and [me] until the furore about Nigella and Charles’ relationship.’
The story about Nigella’s alleged ‘drug nights’ was planted on July 12, a fortnight before the couple were divorced, at the start of a sustained campaign against the TV chef orchestrated by public relations executive Richard Hillgrove, who has claimed to be advising Mr Saatchi.
At the time, the MoS did not run the contentious statement for legal reasons.
But following the trial of former housekeepers Francesca and Elisabetta Grillo, it can now be revealed. The girls claimed in court that Ms Lawson was a regular drug user.
The MoS received the statement via email following a telephone call from a source close to Mr Saatchi about ‘concerns’ he wanted to air. The statement was written by an anonymous friend but endorsed by Phoebe, as she confirmed in a phone call during which her father was present.
After stating that Ms Lawson tried to involve Phoebe in drug taking, it added: ‘When Phoebe’s father learnt the truth from her, and from the staff in the house who would regularly find evidence, and also in Nigella’s top floor study each morning, he and Kay were horrified.
‘Kay and Charles learnt that Nigella used drugs regularly and heavily each night, for an hour after dinner, and another hour before bed. It was a large house, and Charles spent his evenings in their bedroom, and couldn’t smell the evidence because they closed the doors to the upstairs and lit scented candles. Nigella had also installed an air fragrance distribution system throughout the house. The drug nights grew in regularity till they became a permanent fea-
‘Nigella became distant and distracted’
ture in the last year. Phoebe believes that was when Nigella grew distant and cold with her for not joining in.
‘That was also when Nigella’s relationship with her father became distanced and distracted.
‘Nigella additionally had her staff prepare an extra two large versions [of joints], on a daily basis to be left on her desk, for her to consume privately during the night while her husband was asleep.
‘Kay feels that attempting to entice her daughter Phoebe into this druggy world was unforgivable; that she was young and vulnerable to peer pressure.’
The statement went on to say that Phoebe kept the allegations quiet until she could see how deeply her father was upset about the break up with Ms Lawson. She then decided to ‘tell both her parents the truth about my stepmother’.
Mr Saatchi told the MoS via email: ‘I feel like an idiot being the only person in the house who knew nothing about the drugs. The more details I received from the staff the more betrayed I felt.’
Ms Lawson insisted she was not a ‘drug addict or a habitual drug user’ and denied ever authorising the Grillos’ extravagant purchases, as they had claimed, in exchange for them keeping her habit secret.
Mr Saatchi also denied in court that he leaked an email to the defence in which he called his exwife ‘Hi-gella’ and accused her of poisoning her daughter Cosima, 19, with drugs and ‘trashing her life’.
Last week, police said they would not be taking any action over Ms Lawson over her drug-taking, unless fresh evidence emerged.
When she took the stand at Isleworth Crown Court to give evi-