The footballer Paul Gascoigne, whose tears in the 1990 World Cup gave him a passport to English hearts, yesterday admitted that his wife, Sheryl, had filed for divorce after a torrid 17 months of marriage which included bouts of drunkenness and violence.
"I'm getting divorced," he said. "She served the papers on me. But I'm feeling fine."
The couple, who have a one-year-old son, Regan, have been living separately, he in Glasgow, she in their Hertfordshire home, since the England midfielder's move to Glasgow Rangers before their wedding.
Their 1995 marriage seemed doomed almost from the start. Three months after the lavish ceremony, Sheryl, a former model, was photographed badly beaten by Gascoigne. The player admitted to a newspaper that he had beaten his wife and had been forced to undertake counselling for his violent temper.
Last month Sheryl, who has just begun a new career as a presenter for Sky One's Live 6 show, said: "I've been in the limelight for seven years. I haven't really had a choice about that, other than maybe I shouldn't have married Paul in the first place."
Sheryl said in December that the relationship was over and that they would not be spending Christmas together.
The news is a another personal blow to Gascoigne, who has forced his way back into the England squad after seven years disrupted by tabloid newspaper controversy, worries over discipline and drinking, and two serious injuries.