Boris ‘just can’t live without his new love’
BORIS Johnson is said to be so enamoured with former Tory spin doctor lover Carrie Symonds that “he can’t live without her”.
Friends say the former foreign secretary plans to wed Carrie – 24 years his junior – once his divorce to second wife Marina Wheeler is finalised.
Boris, 54, was reported to have moved in recently with Carrie at her £1million rented flat in south-east London where they hosted a pre-New Year party for close friends.
Their affection was clear when they were photographed returning to the property one evening recently when Carrie was spotted cheekily tweaking Boris’s bottom.
Spotted
The couple have tried to keep their relationship discreet but they were spotted together after the twicemarried father-of-four took Carrie to Greece for a New Year holiday. They enjoyed a break at a villa owned by the former London Mayor’s father Stanley, 78.
Yesterday it was claimed Boris briefly broke up with Carrie before Christmas but one friend said: “They simply couldn’t bear being apart.”
Carrie – who is just five years older than Boris’s daughter Lara – is an ardent conservationist and a campaigner against plastic pollution.
The pair have been spending increasing amounts of time with each other and Boris is understood to be buying a £2million riverside apartment near Whitehall where they plan to set up home together.
Boris and human rights lawyer Marina announced they were divorcing last September. They said in a joint statement: “Several months ago, after 25 years of marriage, we decided it was in our best interests to separate.
“We have subsequently agreed to divorce and that process is under way. As friends we will continue to support our four children in the years ahead.”
The couple have three other children – Milo Arthur, 23, Cassia Peaches, 21, and Theodore Apollo, 19.
The divorce was announced hours after reports revealed Marina had booted Boris out of the family home months earlier after accusing him of cheating again. The flamboyant MP had been thrown out by Marina twice before – first in 2004 over his affair with writer Petronella Wyatt, then in 2010 after he fathered a child with art consultant Helen Macintyre.
In addition, Boris was alleged to have had an affair with the journalist Anna Fazackerley while he was a shadow education minister.
Boris and Marina, the daughter of BBC journalist Charles Wheeler, were childhood friends – they met as pupils at the European School in Brussels.
He married first wife Allegra MostynOwen in 1987 after they met at Oxford University, but split when he had an affair with Marina.