Python star: I can’t pay off my £700k interest-only home loan
HE endured a busy tour schedule at the age of 72, but after tickets sold out within seconds, Monty Python star Terry Jones was sure it would be worth it.
He would, for instance, be able to pay off his £700,000 interestonly mortgage.
Yesterday, however, he revealed that the comedy troupe’s reunion was not the lucrative scheme he had envisaged, and he now faces having to move out of his £2.5million London home.
The star said he made only £800,000 for ten nights of shows at the O2 Arena – and he had to hand over half of that to his ex-wife Alison Telfer under the terms of their 2012 divorce, which ruled that income from any work relating to Monty Python
‘Make a lot of money’
should be split. After deductions by the taxman, Jones said he had been left with just £200,000 and could now fail to meet the deadline to pay off his mortgage by next year.
When promoting the reunion tour last year, Jones said he had reunited with John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam to make ‘a lot of money’, adding: ‘I hope to be able to pay off my mortgage!’
When the shows completed earlier this year, he was asked if he would be able to stay in the property that he has lived in for ten years.
He replied: ‘I’m not sure. Maybe I can pay it off, maybe not.’
He told The Times: ‘We each got £800,000 for the shows, but when I got divorced I agreed with my exwife that everything I’d done up to then, up to the separation, we would split 50-50.
‘So my share got halved to £400,000 and paying tax on it, it’s more like £200,000.’ Jones is now married to Anna Soderstrom, 31, with whom he has a five-year-old daughter, Siri.
The idea of the reunion was raised after the group lost a legal battle with Mark Forstater, a producer on Monty Python and the Holy Grail, over the royalties from Spamalot, the musical spin-off of the 1975 film.
It was suggested that a reunion show would pay off the bill which came to £800,000.
The shows in July were eventually extended from a single night to ten. Jones said it was like ‘taking a warm bath’ to walk out on stage to a great reception.
He also revealed he and the other Python members still get on ‘pretty well’, adding: ‘We enjoyed getting back together.’
Hinting at differing views over taking the show on tour, Jones said: ‘Mike Palin didn’t want to do it, didn’t want to tour, and so he scotched it.’