Jackie Lavin: My Bill thinks that everyone likes him. They don’t
FORMER Apprentice star Bill Cullen was too soft with the banks because he thinks everybody likes him, according to his long-term partner Jackie Lavin.
‘They don’t,’ she explained while breaking her silence yesterday on the court case she has launched against him over Killegy House in Co. Kerry.
As the Irish Mail on Sunday previously revealed – despite other media reports – the couple are not at each other’s throats and are still very much together as they were forced to reiterate this week.
The court case is a technicality, with Lavin suing Cullen’s old firm – that has been put into receivership – for the ownership of the house she says she paid for.
But yesterday Lavin said she couldn’t believe the way the media had treated the news.
‘You’d swear it was Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie crap…
‘I don’t want it to be about that sh***. I want it to be about the issue,’ she said.
When asked if Cullen – who borrowed heavily during the boom – contributed to his own misfortune, she suggested his ego may have been a little responsible.
‘I feel he was too soft with the banks. He didn’t fight enough against them. He allowed other people to interface too much with them instead of doing it himself. He always had the impression, “Sure, they won’t do that to me.” Bill thinks that people think like him. And they don’t.’
Her action against Cullen and one of his companies, Glencullen Properties Ltd, over the alleged failure to complete a deal for the sale of Killegy House to her was briefly mentioned in the High Court on Thursday. It is to be heard in October.
‘He was too soft with the banks... didn’t fight enough’