31 Jul 2013

Lawson and Saatchi seek quick divorce

6:36 pm on 31 July 2013

The 10-year marriage of television cook Nigella Lawson and millionaire art collector Charles Saatchi is expected to end in a 'quickie divorce' at a British court on Wednesday.

A judge is scheduled to grant a decree nisi at a brief hearing in central London.

If granted, Mr Saatchi, 70, and Ms Lawson, 53, will then have to wait for a decree absolute, with a divorce likely to be rubber-stamped in September, PA reports.

In June this year, Mr Saatchi was cautioned for assault after pictures were published showing him holding his wife by the throat during an argument at a London restaurant.

He dismissed the incident as "a playful tiff" but then accepted a police caution for assault, saying he had done so to stop the incident "hanging over" them.

Ms Lawson, who has subsequently been pictured without her wedding ring, has described him as "the exploder" in the past, due to his temper.

The couple confirmed they would not make any financial claims against the other, ruling out prolonged legal arguments.

Charles Saatchi, a former advertising executive, is a well known art collector and owner of the Saatchi Gallery. In 2010, he donated his Chelsea art gallery, including more than 200 works of art, to the British public, the BBC reports.

Nigella Lawson has two children from her marriage to journalist John Diamond, who died in 2001.

She first began a restaurant column in The Spectator in 1985 and by the following year had become deputy literary editor of The Sunday Times.

She then went on to write the book How to Eat, followed by the award-winning How to be a Domestic Goddess. Her television programmes - including Nigella Bites and Nigella's Christmas Kitchen - have brought her international fame.