Today a court took just 70 seconds to grant Nigella and Charles a Decree Nisi which takes them one step closer to becoming divorced. This follows a month after pictures showing him with his hand around her neck during a row outside Scott's restaurant in Mayfair were published by The Daily Mirror.
What has been interesting during this whole sorry state of affairs is the pathetic attempts by Mr Saatchi to try and put a PR spin on things to save his reputation, or his own 'personal brand' as he would put it.
He initially dismissed the incident as nothing more than "a playful tiff" but then accepted a police caution for assault. He said he had done so to stop the incident "hanging over" them. This 'rug sweeping' is not a brilliant way to publicly deal with domestic violence. If trying to throttle someone and making them cry is a 'playful tiff' then heaven only knows what Nigella had to endure at home. Saatchi should have considered his initial response more carefully and sensitively, especially as someone who has previously publicly declared himself as a 'genius for persuasion' and as having a 'burning righteousness for business', qualities which have since clearly failed the public let alone his wife.
In a statement to a newspaper he said he was disappointed that Nigella was advised to make no public comment to explain that he abhorred violence of any kind against women and that he has never abused her physically in any way. Lawson has not issued any statements since the incident, retaining what little dignity she has against a man who was out to take it all away.
Saatchi is a man who has managed to sell us everything from Margaret Thatcher to tickets for dead things pickled in glass cases. He has sold us cigarettes and then been the messenger for anti-smoking campaigns, for which he visited lung cancer treatment centres and then came back with the comment of 'how sweet of you to think that advertising copy is written from the heart.'
In his 2012 book 'Be The Worst You Can Be' he gleefully announces "Everyone is needy, arrogant, callous, aggrieved, self-absorbed, petty, mean-spirited, spiteful, greedy, envious, ill-mannered and malicious" In business we might put up with such traits, but not in marriage.
It would seem as if any further attempts to clean up his image in the eyes of the public are going to be all the more futile. Our thoughts and sympathies are with Nigella, we no longer care for Saatchi or what he has to say, he lost the battle as soon as his fingers locked around his wife's neck. Type in 'Saatchi' into google images and that's the first image that comes up.
It would seem as if the only person actually on side Saathci is Richard Hillgrove of Hillgrove PR who wrote a blog claiming that the pictures were staged for publicity purposes and that Nigella had 'knowingly orchestrated' the whole event. Nigella is now suing him. "I assume I'm going to be libel action, but I think it's grossly unfair the way he [Saatchi] has been treated," Hillgrove said.
If Saatchi is succeeding at one thing it is taking his own advice and Being The Worst He Can Be.
By Jessica Hazel
