Those of a certain age will remember those Oxo adverts of the 1980s, in which Lynda Bellingham played an archetypal British mum serving up delicious home-cooked dishes for her family – all generously drizzled with gravy, of course.
Sadly, those wonderful memories are now being tarnished by a public row that’s dividing the late actress’s family.
The dispute centres around allegations that Bellingham’s widower Michael Pattemore has spent all the money she left behind when she died of bowel cancer in October 2014 – depriving her two sons of their inheritance.
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Now, though, Pattemore, 61, is hitting back by claiming that there WAS no money, and that Bellingham actually left £50,000 of debt when she passed away.
Pattemore, who became Bellingham’s third husband in 2008, has been accused of blowing the Loose Women panellist’s estate on a new car, a round-the-world trip and a hair transplant.
Shortly after her death, he posted pictures of himself enjoying holidays in Australia and Cuba.
But he insists that he paid for his lifestyle using royalties from the sale of his book, My Lynda.
“I’m sorry but how could I be splurging her sons’ inheritance? There was no money,” he told the Mirror.
“Lynda was £50,000 in debt when she died. She had a £25,000 overdraft and the rest was spread over a number of credit cards.
“And I’m the one who’s got to pay them off now that we’ve finally been granted probate on her will.”
Bellingham’s sons Michael, 34, and Robbie, 29, are from her marriage to her second husband, Nunzio Peluso. Earlier this year, it was reported that Pattemore had not been invited to Robbie’s wedding in New York.
Now, he claims that the allegations have left him at the end of his tether.
“I don’t know where her sons have got this notion there are millions swilling around somewhere,” he continued.
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“Perhaps it’s from their father Nunzio, who was convinced – Lynda told me – that she was sitting on a fortune when they divorced.
“But it wasn’t true then and it’s not true now.
“I wish the boys all the best, I honestly do from the bottom of my heart. But one person can only take so much.”