I caught my husband cheating - so I trashed his £100,000 Porsche... not to mention put laxatives in his drink, cut up his clothes - and fought him tooth and nail for control of my bra company, by MICHELLE MONE
- Michelle says marriage problems started soon after 1999 launch of Ultimo
- But stuck with husband saying people from her background didn't divorce
- Beginning of end came after she hired Samantha Bunn as head of design
- Husband Michael was pictured kissing Ms Bunn not long after break-up
LET'S GO NEXT DOOR TO THE BEDROOM, SUGGESTED SHANE WARNE
Indecent proposal: Warne was 'too wild' for Michelle
Newly
single after 22 years of marriage, I got a rude introduction to the
modern dating scene from the Australian cricketer Shane Warne, Liz
Hurley’s ex.
We were fixed up by our mutual friend, the former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan.
Since
Shane was in Australia and I was in the UK, we couldn’t meet straight
away and spent two months constantly texting and chatting over the
phone.
He
was good fun, and although I felt the odd text message from him was a
bit too explicit, I was excited about seeing him when he flew to London
in February 2014.
He
was supposed to land on a Saturday, and we planned to meet that
evening, but I received a text on the Friday saying he had arrived a day
early because he had to ‘sort some things out’ with Liz.
That happened to be Valentine’s Day, so my mind raced as I wondered whether he was two-timing me.
The
following evening, I got all dressed up in my suite at the Dorchester
hotel, before receiving a text at 7.45pm, 15 minutes after he was
supposed to meet me, saying he couldn’t make it.
I was furious, and even more so the next morning when I saw newspaper photographs of him getting out of a car with Liz.
Later
that day, when he asked if he could come and see me, I almost said no,
but he insisted so vehemently that nothing was going on between them
that I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
Since
paparazzi were hanging around the hotel for the BAFTA Awards, we agreed
that he should come to my suite which had a lounge where we could sit
and chat.
Finally,
after all that build-up, he walked in. We opened a bottle of champagne
and talked, but it wasn’t the sort of conversation I’d expected. He
chain-smoked about 35 cigarettes — and I hate smoking — and after about
an hour he got restless.
‘Can we go next door to the bedroom?’ he asked suggestively.
I
made it clear that I was not that kind of girl and, besides, though
he’s a nice, fun guy, he wasn’t my type in the end. He was a bit too
wild for me.
All in all, it was really disappointing but at least I learned something from the experience.
Never again will I start texting a guy without meeting him first because, quite frankly, Shane wasted two months of my life.
Ambitious: Michelle says she's still working out what she wants to do with the next chapter of her life
She’s
one of Britain’s most flamboyant businesswomen. Now Ultimo bra tycoon
Michelle Mone is laying bare how her marriage became a battle more
bitter than any she’d faced in the boardroom. Today, in our concluding
extract, she reveals how she finally exposed her husband’s affair — and
plotted her revenge . . .
As
a kid growing up in one of the most working class parts of Glasgow, I
vowed that one day I’d have a house like the ones I saw on my favourite
TV programme, Dynasty.
Sure
enough, the six-bedroom mansion which my husband Michael and I bought
in 2008 had a sweeping staircase, just like the one featured in the home
of the fabulously wealthy Carrington family.
There was also a huge walk-in wardrobe containing 100 pairs of Louboutin shoes and racks of dresses costing £4,000 a pop.
Downstairs
we had a bar, a cinema with reclining leather chairs and even a
nightclub out the back, not to mention five flashy cars on the driveway
including Michael’s £100,000 Porsche.
To
top it all, the house was in an affluent village ten miles from Glasgow
which is known as Millionaires’ Row. For me, it couldn’t have been more
perfect — but my parents hated visiting me there.
‘It’s
like a show-home,’ Mum shuddered, and she was right. I had installed
four dishwashers because I couldn’t bear the sight of dirty plates, and
our three kids were forbidden ever to put a pine coat-hanger into a
walnut wardrobe, knowing that it would freak me out.
Once
I returned from a business trip and found that the salt grinder had
been left out in the kitchen. Panic. I needed to check nothing else was
out of place.
Only
after I’d opened the cupboards one by one and ensured that the food
labels were all facing the same way did I feel in control again.
This
obsessive compulsive behaviour was a manifestation of my deep-seated
unhappiness. I found comfort in regimenting the small things around me
because I felt out of control in a much bigger part of my life — my
marriage.
As
I’ve explained in this series, my marital problems began soon after the
launch of our Ultimo lingerie brand in 1999. Going to work became like
walking through a minefield, our boardroom meetings constantly
interrupted by one or other of us storming out, and the arguments
continued at home where our sex life was virtually non-existent.
Incredibly,
I never considered divorce. I came from a background where you got on
with it, no matter what. But the beginning of the very dramatic end came
in the summer of 2011 when I appointed 31-year-old Samantha Bunn as our
new head of design.
Break-up: Michelle split with husband Michael after he became close to her new head of design Samantha Bunn
She
was nine years younger than me and I took her under my wing. She was
having big problems with her boyfriend so I felt sorry for her and said
she could live in our guest annexe, right next door to the main house.
I
treated her like a family friend. Some nights I invited her over for
dinner and we’d all sit around the kitchen table, chatting and laughing.
But soon she started pushing the boundaries.
At
work, she was always in Michael’s office, flirting and flicking her
long dark hair. Michael shut the door, something he never usually did,
but I could see what was going on because of the design of our
headquarters. Built in the shape of a breast — well, we had made our
fortune selling bras — they had glass walls everywhere.
While
I was away on business, Sam started popping around for dinner with
Michael and the kids. One night I saw him lifting a bottle of red out of
the wine rack and he told me he was taking it next door because Sam had
texted to say she’d run out. An hour later he returned, claiming they
had been just ‘talking’.
After
that, I was constantly asking Michael if he was having an affair and
his answer was always the same — ‘You’re mad, you need to be sectioned’.
He
told everyone, even my parents, that I needed psychiatric help, but my
suspicions continued to grow at our office Christmas party where Sam
giggled into his ear and he ignored virtually everyone else.
Michelle Mone fired Samantha Bunn (top) after discovering she had struck up a romance with her estranged husband Michael
Michelle hired a private detective to prove that her ex-husband was having an affair her head of design Samantha Bunn
I
wanted to go home at 7pm so the staff could let their hair down without
us around, but Michael refused to leave. That night, I paced our
bedroom waiting for him to return. Finally, at 3.30am, I heard a taxi
pull into the drive and the two of them giggling.
That
was it. I’d had enough of this heartache and nobody made a fool out of
me. I confronted him and we had yet another explosive argument and
barely spoke for the next week.
When
it got to Christmas Day we agreed that we’d put on a happy front for
the sake of the children, who were then 12, 15 and 19, but after taking
the turkey out of the oven Michael suddenly walked out.
It
was awful. I was crying and so were the kids. He didn’t come back until
Boxing Day morning, and we agreed then that our marriage was over. I
put out a Press statement to that effect because that way I knew there
could be no going back, and I could draw a line under it and finally
move on.
The
release made no mention of Sam. I was doing this for closure, not out
of spite, but Michael remained adamant that there was nothing happening
between them, and I wanted proof that there was to reassure both myself
and my family that I wasn’t going mad, as he had kept insisting I was.
So
I decided to flush them out like rats. That January, the two of them
were due to visit our factories in Hong Kong with some of our technical
staff and I gave details of their itinerary to a private detective
recommended via contacts of my friend, Carol Vorderman.
I’d
got to know Carol well after we starred together on Celebrity
Apprentice, and while Michael and Sam were away in Hong Kong she took me
out to lunch in London to cheer me up.
Halfway
through our meal I got a call from the private detective, suggesting we
meet urgently. He came to the restaurant, took me aside, and handed me a
big brown envelope.
Inside
I found pictures of Michael snogging Sam at the airport and of her
going back to his hotel room. Deep down I knew my marriage had been over
for years, but I still felt indescribable pain. My knees buckled and I
fell to the ground crying, comforted by Carol who ran over and wrapped
her arms around me.
Back
in Scotland my grief turned to anger. After texting Michael to tell him
that he had been caught red-handed, I grabbed a knife and went to town
on his beloved Porsche, scratching it to shreds.
Then
I charged round to the guesthouse where Sam was living — thanks to the
kindness which she had betrayed — and threw all of her possessions into
the garden, the dressing table along with them. I was like a banshee.
I then kept calling Sam’s phone until she picked up.
After defacing her husband's Porsche, Michelle had to give Michael £8,000 for the damage to the car
‘You b****, you lied to me,’ I screamed.
‘It’s not like that,’ she stuttered. ‘It only started a few days ago.’
‘You’re a liar and you’re fired,’ I blasted.
When Michael got back from Hong Kong, the first thing he raged about was his Porsche.
‘My f***ing car,’ he yelled. ‘You’ll pay for that.’
‘You’re lucky I didn’t set fire to it,’ I replied.
In
the coming weeks, he told the press that there had been no relationship
with Sam prior to our split at Christmas — and I even got a letter from
her lawyers saying that she was suing me for unfair dismissal.
What
was I supposed to do? Sit down and design bras with her? I would
probably have stuck the needles and scissors up her backside, but my
lawyer advised me to pay her off and she wasn’t the only cost. I also
had to give Michael £8,000 for the damage to his car. But the fighting
between us was not over even then.
Any
reasonable person who’d had an affair would have moved out of the
family home, but Michael tried to insist that it was I who should go.
There was no way I would leave my house and my kids, and what followed
was like that film The War Of The Roses in which divorcing husband and
wife Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner try everything to get each
other to leave the house and end up in a fight to the death.
Weight battle: Entrepeneur Michelle Mone went from a binge-eater, left, in 2003, to svelte pin-up, above
Every
night there was a race to the master bedroom. Whoever was there first
got the bed. I put his favourite shirts and cufflinks in the bin. I let
down his car tyres. I cut holes in all his boxer shorts. I put laxatives
in his coffee on the day that he and Sam were going to a wedding — God
only knows if that worked. Michael probably did things to me too because
quite a lot of my stuff went missing, but somehow we remained under the
same roof for eight months before agreeing to alternate weeks at the
house.
On
the day I moved out to a hotel for his first week I crept up to the
master bedroom, pulled back the luxurious throw and threw a bucket of
cold water over his side of the bed before replacing the covers.
Later
the kids phoned to ask why I had done this and, looking back, I can see
I was selfish. I should have thought about the effect all this would
have on them, but it was my way of getting my hurt out.
At
the same time, I was also fighting Michael for control of the company.
Who would buy out who? It started with a low blow from him. ‘You’re
fired,’ he said one day, pointing at me as if he was Lord Alan Sugar.
I’d
always left the legal side of things to him and now learned that he had
somehow ended up with 48 per cent of our shares, compared with my 47
per cent. But still he needed 50 per cent to control the business and I
managed to persuade Tom Walker, a silent shareholder who owned 5 per
cent, to back me, and together we had more power than Michael.
Hidden troubles: Michelle and Michael, above in 2010, maintained the image of the perfect couple
That
was round one of what felt like the longest boxing match in history.
Whatever punches Michael threw I got up the next day ready for battle.
He
might have been more intelligent than me — he was a university graduate
whereas I had left school at 15 with no qualifications — but I had more
fight and stamina, although I was crying myself to sleep and downing a
bottle of wine a night to numb the pain of it all.
With
news of our problems now public, the company value crashed as customers
wondered what was going on. Eventually I managed to find new backers,
but they would only invest if Michael left — and he refused to accept
what was being offered for his shares.
Finally,
in February 2013, with only weeks to go before we went under, our bank
told Michael that he had to accept the deal. That same day I agreed with
him the paperwork for our divorce, and soon afterwards we sold the
house.
The
biggest battle of my life was finally over, and in August 2013 the kids
and I moved into a once derelict Victorian building in Glasgow which I
had spent months transforming into our new dream home. Living there was a
new beginning for us, and the feelings of bitterness which used to eat
me up at night slowly vanished.
Not
even the news that Michael had launched a rival lingerie company with
Sam bothered me, and I wished them all the best on their recent
engagement.
As
for me, I hope that one day I’ll meet the perfect guy, but I’m not
sitting around waiting for it to happen because there’s so much I still
want to achieve.
These
days I want to spend more time with my kids, and more time working on
‘me’, and so I have sold 80 per cent of Ultimo, hanging up my bra as
Chief Executive.
I’m
still working out what I want to do with the next chapter of my life.
It will definitely involve lots of motivational speaking, inspiring
other people to make the most out of their lives, and if there’s one
lesson I’ve learned above all, it is that material things do not bring
you happiness.
If
only I could go back in time and tell that to the little girl who sat
at home in the East End of Glasgow, watching TV with her
sausage-and-chips supper on her knees and dreaming of the riches she saw
on Dynasty.
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