TV personality and broadcaster Vanessa Feltz has been married just once, and not for 25 years. But she recently bore all about her relationship with her ex-husband in her autobiography.
The book, Vanessa Bares All (see what we did there?), is billed as funny and honest, and contains some remarkable revelations about her romantic history.
Especially when it comes to Michael Kurer, her husband of 17 years.
Vanessa Feltz was married to husband Michael Kurer for 17 years
Vanessa’s grandmother introduced her to Michael. And it took just 10 weeks for them to go from acquaintances to fiancé(e)s. Quick work!
They tied the knot in 1983, and for 16 of the years they spent as husband and wife, she believed they were blissfully happy. She gave birth to their two daughters, Allegra and Saskia, in 1986 and 1989 respectively.
Then, one Sunday in 1999, Vanessa – on The Chase today (February 15) – joked about being broody, as she tells it in her autobiography. His reply is something of a non-sequitur.
“Out of nowhere,” she wrote, “he said in a Dalek-like voice: ‘I-do-not-rule-out-the-possibility-of-a-divorce.'”
Surprised by his response, Vanessa asked why. What he said next might surprise you.
“‘You are just so fat, so fat. It’s hideous,'” Vanessa quoted him as saying. “‘You are hideous. I keep waiting for you to get diabetes.'”
She was a size 18 at the time, not far off the national average.
But what happened next might surprise you even more.
He gave her a shocking ultimatum
When Michael Kurer told his then-wife Vanessa that he was waiting for her to get diabetes, she said she struggled to breathe properly. It affected her sight too. She’d gone into shock.
Then, days later, he laid down an ultimatum. Lose weight in 12 weeks, or lose him. She took him at his word, and embarked on a spartan weight-loss journey.
Vanessa reportedly ate just 300 calories per day, limiting herself to apples and hard-boiled eggs. She trained, seven days a week, determined to prove herself to her husband.
After six weeks, she had dropped down a dress size. She was hopeful.
Then, one night, Vanessa said that Michael just got out of bed, packed a suitcase and disappeared. He apparently returned the next day to tell their daughters they were separating, that they “no longer loved each other”.
He’d fallen in love with someone else, she said. And that was that.
“I think that one can forgive on one’s own behalf. But I feel very differently about anyone who does anything to my children.
“Especially the person who is meant to love them the most in the world,” Vanessa wrote. “So I cannot feel that I can forgive. I don’t feel that I can forgive anybody who does anything to cause my children pain and shock and grief and thoroughly destabilise them.”
Catch Vanessa Feltz on The Chase on Saturday February 15 at 5pm, on ITV1.
Read more: Ben Ofoedu declares Vanessa Feltz has ‘no class’ as he moves on with woman 23 years his junior
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