Nigella says ‘I will her sweet revenge Chef plots comeback and hits out at her ex in her f irst interview since scandal engulfed her
NIGELLA LAWSON has always been reluctant to speak about the events of the past six months, surely the most difficult time of her life.
During the public disintegration of her marriage and its ugly aftermath, and despite an alleged campaign to savage her reputation, the television star has largely kept a dignified silence. Now, in an exclusive interview with TV Week magazine today, Ms Lawson has spoken, for the first time, about the ways in which she has ‘toughened up’ and reveals – in what could be interpreted as a reference to her former husband – that she finds men who don’t eat ‘unattractive’.
And in her only personal comments
‘I don’t find it attractive
if a man doesn’t eat’
since the Grillo girls were found not guilty, the celebrity cook told the MoS she will not only survive but is determined to move forward with her life.
Speaking via her publicist Mark Hutchinson, Nigella said: ‘ The past months have been extremely difficult but I am looking forward to getting back to work and to looking after my family. I will survive this and move forward. I just want to focus on my family life and work.’
In her first interview since those notorious photographs of her husband grabbing her neck, taken at a London restaurant, Ms Lawson makes it clear she is ready to move forward. Just as the old adage says, ‘success is the sweetest revenge’.
Answering questions about her new TV show The Taste, a cross between The X Factor and The Voice, Ms Lawson, 53, admits: ‘I’m a woman obsessed with food… I have an instinctive urge to feed people.
‘No one, not even the man who comes to fix the boiler, can leave my house without something wrapped in tinfoil. I don’t fight that urge.’
Charles Saatchi, 70, is renowned for his bizarre eating habits. In 2008, he shed five stone in nine months by eating nothing but eggs, three for each meal, always hardboiled or scrambled. In the ensuing five years, he shunned his wife’s food, a particular insult given she is one of Britain’s most popular cooks. Instead, he only ever ate fish, steamed or grilled, with no oil.
Ms Lawson always claimed not to mind, often making a joke of it. The truth, it seems, was rather different.
‘I don’t find it attractive if a man doesn’t eat,’ she says now.
‘Fear of flesh for me equates with a lack of interest in life.’
While her previous cookery shows have been characterised by that flirtatious, tongue-in-cheek charm, Channel 4’s version of her US show The Taste will show her ‘blasting’ her team when she thinks they haven’t performed well enough.
‘Well, there are times when fierceness is needed,’ she says. ‘I’ve definitely toughened up. I mind dreadfully when things go wrong for my team. I don’t do screaming and confrontation, that has never been my style. I do logic and quiet argument.’
Certainly, that is how Ms Lawson approached her testimony at the trial of Elisabetta and Francesca Grillo. According to friends, Ms Lawson was shocked by the jury’s decision on Friday that both women were not guilty of defrauding Mr Saatchi of £685,000 during a
‘She will never forgive him… at least it’s over’
four-year spending spree on his credit cards.
One close friend, who asked not to be named, said: ‘Nigella was abso- lutely floored by the verdict. She’s disappointed with them [the Grillo sisters]. She sees that Charles brought her to this, not them.
‘She will never forgive him. She has vowed to be more successful as her way get him back [for what he’s done]. I think this is her revenge. She has been watching the news channels, reading the newspapers, Googling. She has been in limbo, watching and waiting. At least now it’s over.’
One of Nigella’s oldest friends, film-maker and author Olivia Lichtenstein, said the TV star was ready to put the past year behind her. To