Entertainment

Myleene Klass says divorce battle changed her ‘irrevocably’

The former Hear’Say star said she would have friends offering their husbands to do odd jobs for her.
The former Hear’Say star said she would have friends offering their husbands to do odd jobs for her. The former Hear’Say star said she would have friends offering their husbands to do odd jobs for her.

Myleene Klass has said that going through a divorce changed her “irrevocably”, and that at her lowest moments she would consider drinking at 11am.

The classical musician and broadcaster married security consultant Graham Quinn in 2011, but they separated less than a year later and divorced in 2013.

Klass, 40, made an emotional appearance on Kate Thornton’s White Wine Question Time podcast, in which she spoke about her struggles while going through the divorce from Quinn, with whom she has two daughters, Ava and Hero.

She said: “I remember waking up, thinking, ‘I’ll have a drink by 11, that’s OK, because that means I haven’t had a drink for four hours’.”

Asked about an act of kindness that has happened in her life, Klass broke down in tears.

She said: “It’s quite overwhelming… Lauren (Laverne) came to the house, and (my manager) did the same thing, at 4am.

“I was doing breakfast TV, and the guy opened the door, and I just took a breath because I thought, ‘I can’t get out of the car’.

“I was right in the middle of a divorce, I was trying to get my kids balanced, I was trying to breathe, my finances were spiralling, because you’re thinking, ‘I’m going to lose everything’.

“You’re so frightened, the humiliation, you’ve got people looking at you, blaming you, without a clue what the f*** is going on.”

Referring to her manager and “best friend” Severine Berman, Klass said: “She got up, she set her alarm at 3am to meet me in a car park. And Lauren came round to my house.

“Lauren’s husband came round and fixed my fence. I was crying because I was so embarrassed.”

The former Hear’Say star said: “How many girlfriends would set their alarm at three in the morning to meet you in a car park?”

Klass said she did not “want to be vulnerable” and that she has “never, ever been in a position where I’ve been asking people for help, I’m always the person helping”.

She said: “You’re so scared because you don’t know where to go, I had friends who were lending me their husbands who were coming over with lawnmowers. I didn’t have the strength, it was enough just to get up and get the kids dressed.”

Klass added: “It wasn’t something I wanted to define me, but I do think it changed me, irrevocably, because I think what it made me do is it’s given me such an empathy for what other women go through.

“I’ll never be able to look at it in another way now.”