Havers: I felt suicidal over guilt of cheating on my wife
NIGEL Havers has revealed he was suicidal after he cheated on his first wife – and checked himself into a psychiatric hospital.
The 65-year-old actor spoke candidly about the aftermath of his affair with ex-model and actress Polly Williams, which played out while he was married to Carolyn Cox.
He said that it was a ‘very dark moment’ being caught up in the love triangle, and that taking his own life was ‘in the equation’.
Speaking on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories, he added that he felt he was ‘in a corner’ and that suicide might be a ‘relief’.
‘It was either upsetting Caro (Carolyn) or upsetting Polly... or not that. It was upsetting,’ he told Morgan. ‘That [suicide] was in the equation. It is a very dark moment and I have never really thought about it. I have never talked about this to anybody actually. When you are like that you have nowhere else to go and you can’t talk to anyone about it. So I was in a corner but entirely of my own making.’
He added: ‘I did not see any way of being happy. There was not a happy way out. I got myself into such a ridiculous state ... like whatever decision I made you were never going to be happy. That is so weird isn’t it? But I only have myself to blame really so what can you do?’
Asked whether he went as far as formulating a plan for the suicide, he replied: ‘I did not have a plan but I did think it would be a relief, yep.’ Morgan commented that he has only ever thought of the Chariots of Fire star as ‘upbeat, charming and very funny’, and said the revelations were ‘extraordinary’.
Havers replied: ‘Well, I got just myself in such a hole and that is all I could think of.’
After the initial upset, Havers spent a short stint in the psychiatric ward of a hospital but left after it was leaked to the Press, and sought the help of friend Michael Whitehall, a celebrity agent.
He said: ‘I went to a psychiatric ward in a hospital but after a few days I left as somebody had obviously spoken (to papers) so I went to stay with Michael and cut the grass. That is what I did. I did that a lot. He had the shortest grass by the time I left.’
Soon after, Havers and Miss Williams holidayed in the South of France, but bumped into Roger Moore and Michael Caine on the plane. He recalled: ‘They were good as they were like “Oh get on with it, shut up.” Michael felt like another dad to me. My dad did say to me once “The worst is not always the worst. There is always a rainbow at the end.” You have just got to get through it. Carolyn was a wonderful person. I did not want to upset her but off I went.’
Havers first met Miss Williams in 1986, when she was still married.
They wed in 1989, and Havers referred to her as his ‘ soulmate’, but she died in 2004 of ovarian cancer. Three years later, he married multi-millionaire divorcee Georgiana Bronfman, born Rita Webb, who he lives with in West London. His first wife Miss Cox died from pneumonia in 2011 at 65.
During the wide-ranging interview for the ITV show, which airs tomorrow at 9pm, Havers also spoke about how he stays in shape by eating ‘one meal a day’.
He said: ‘I try not to eat during the day. I try to only eat one meal a day. It seems to be the right way, just one meal in the evening. I can go most of the day with nothing.’
He added: ‘I am 10.5st. I try to stay there and when you are doing a play it stays that way anyway. I have had the same waist size for 50 years, it is 30ins.’