14 DAY TRIAL // Celebrity chef Nigella Lawson has had a very rough year and now, to top everything else, she also has to take the stand and defend herself against accusations made by her ex Charles Saatchi of how she’s a “habitual drug user,” in an ongoing fraud case.
Lawson and Saatchi are taking legal action against two of her former personal assistants, who are accused of robbing them blind. The PAs and, more recently, Saatchi told the court that the money that’s missing was actually hush money from Nigella, who was trying to keep her raging drug habit from her husband.
On the stand the other day, she denied such allegations, though she did come clean about dabbling into cocaine, six times when her late husband found out he had terminal cancer, and once more recently, after she realized her marriage to Saatchi was falling apart.
The celebrity chef also admitted to smoking “the odd joint,” but stressed that “I have never been a drug addict. I have never been a habitual user,” The Mirror informs.
Ms. Lawson also explained to the court why she never informed her attorneys about an email Saatchi sent her, in which he was telling her she was always so high on drugs he might as well call her “High-gella” from then on.
“These allegations appeared in a PR blog that had been dedicated to salvaging Mr. Saatchi’s reputation and savaging mine. I felt that this would not become a fraud case, I would be put on trial, and actually that is what has happened,” she said. She expressed her belief that she was now the object of a “witch hunt” by Saatchi and her former PAs.
“This was not behavior I'm proud of [but I am not] habitual drug user and drug addict, or a snorter of cocaine for 10 years. I can say that since freeing myself from a brilliant and brutal man, I am now totally cannabis and drug free,” the beloved TV star told the court.
She also explained the much mediated incident which saw her husband photographed strangling her and then forcefully pulling her nose. She said he told “everyone” that he was trying to get cocaine out of her nose but the truth was different: he was merely trying to “remind” her that he was the one around whom her entire universe must revolve.
“But what actually happened was that somebody walked by with a very cute baby in a stroller and I said ‘I am so looking forward to having grandchildren,’ and he grabbed me by the throat and said ‘I am the only person you should be concerned with. I am the only person who should be giving you pleasure.’ That is what happened,” Nigella explained.
As rumored in the press at the time, Ms. Lawson confirmed that Saatchi threatened to destroy her if she didn’t go with his public version of the events and would dare to speak the truth.