Saatchi and Nigella Lawson to divorce, report says

Art collector Charles Saatchi has said he and chef Nigella Lawson are to divorce, the Mail on Sunday reported, citing an interview.

“I am sorry to announce that Nigella Lawson and I are getting divorced,” Mr Saatchi told the newspaper.

“This is heartbreaking for both of us as our love was very deep, but in the last year we have become estranged and drifted apart,” he said.

Last month a newspaper , The People, published photographs showing Mr Saatchi with his hand around his wife’s neck at a London restaurant table.

At the time he dismissed the incident as nothing more than ”a playful tiff” but then accepted a police caution for assault.

“I feel that I have clearly been a disappointment to Nigella during the last year or so, and I am disappointed that she was advised to make no public comment to explain that I abhor violence of any kind against women and have never abused her physically in any way,” Mr Saatchi told the Mail.

The argument photographed at the restaurant “could equally have been Nigella grasping my neck to hold my attention -- as indeed she has done in the past,” he said.

Bloomberg/PA