LONDON (AP) — Celebrity chef Nigella Lawson admitted in court Wednesday that she had taken cocaine, but denied being a habitual user. She accused her ex-husband of trying to "destroy" her, during a lacerating day of testimony that laid bare a materially affluent but deeply troubled marriage.
Lawson said her former husband Charles Saatchi, a millionaire art collector, spread drug rumors about her after he was photographed gripping her throat outside Scott's restaurant in London. The widely published image ignited harsh criticism of Saatchi and was soon followed by their divorce in July.
"He told everyone that he was taking cocaine out of my nose at Scott's when he knows that is a lie," Lawson said, testifying at the fraud trial of two former assistants. She said her ex-husband spread "false allegations that I was a habitual user" who snorted cocaine daily.
Lawson, 53, was appearing as a prosecution witness at the trial of Elisabetta and Francesca Grillo, longtime employees who worked as nannies, cleaners and assistants in the couple's London home.
The Grillos — sisters from Calabria in southern Italy — are accused of using credit cards loaned to them by Lawson and Saatchi for household expenses to spend 685,000 pounds (more than $1 million) on luxury clothes, accessories and rooms at high-end hotels.
The two employees deny the fraud charges. Their defense lawyers have suggested that Lawson ignored the Grillos' lavish expenditure in return for their silence about her alleged drug use.
The media coverage of the trial has focused more on Lawson and Saatchi's failed 10-year marriage and their tempestuous home life than on allegations that two women working for them were living the high life at the couple's unknowing expense.
Lawson said she had been reluctant to testify in court because she had already been subjected to a campaign of "bullying and abuse" from Saatchi.
"I have been put on trial here ... and in the world's press," Lawson said.
Lawson said she had taken cocaine half a dozen times with her first husband, John Diamond, while he was dying of cancer. And she took it once again in July 2010 at a time when "I felt subjected to acts of intimate terrorism" by Saatchi.
"A friend of mine offered me some cocaine and I took it," she said. "It completely spooked me."
She also said she had smoked marijuana during the final stages of her marriage to Saatchi.
.....
