FREDDIE Starr’s wife Sophie has revealed she reported him to police for lashing out at her — and confessed: “Our marriage was hell.”
She told how the funnyman cracked under the pressure of a police probe into historic abuse allegations and targeted his anger at her.
Sophie, 33, said: “Freddie would fly off in rages and take it all out on me daily. He started to give me constant verbal abuse, telling me I was useless and things like that. Our marriage was hell.
“If I asked him if he wanted a cup of tea and a scone and I forgot the scone he would fly off the handle and accuse me of disrespecting and neglecting him.
She claims five-times-wed Starr, 72, kicked her in the incident and added: “On one occasion I was left with a black eye.”
Starr has since fled to Spain after running up legal debts of £1million during a failed libel action — leaving Sophie penniless. She added:
“Now the police will never get the opportunity to question him.”
The pair met in 2010 while she was a singer on his stage show and their romance quickly became serious despite their 39-year age gap. They married in 2013.
“We were friends at first and Freddie helped me get a house and a car. He helped me get back on my feet. Freddie then had a quadruple heart bypass and after he returned home I moved in with him.”
Then in November 2012 Starr was arrested as part of the Operation Yewtree probe in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.
Sophie recalled the investigation had an immediate impact, with Starr moping around their £1million mansion in Studley, Warwickshire, and watching TV for 18 hours each day.
Sophie said: “Freddie was impossible to live with because he became so lazy. He would get up and just watch TV all day
“Freddie became obsessed with ghost-hunting shows. He would watch them for hours on end. I found them creepy but he made me watch them.
“He would have a go at me if I used my iPad or read a magazine. If I tried to speak to him he would just say, ‘Shut the f*** up’
Starr was re-arrested four times after Karin Ward, who had been abused by Savile, claimed Starr tried to grope her in a dressing room when she was 14 in 1974. Thirteen more women came forward with allegations against him.
Starr’s only contact with the outside world was a series of phone chats with fellow accused comic Jim Davidson, 61.
Sophie said: “Jim would ring up all the time. They would have chats because they were friends from way back and were both under investigation. Freddie would be ever so nice to him on the phone but they slag him off as soon as he put the receiver down.
“Freddie was always banging on to me about respect and how important it was but then I would see the way he treated Jim and think, ‘That is not respect’.”
In August 2013 Davidson was told there would be no further action taken against him because of a lack of evidence. Starr would not get the same news until the following May.
He launched a libel action against Ms Ward over her public claims but a judge ruled against him, leaving him with a legal bill and costs of £960,000.
Sophie said the couple’s only income had been his pension. She said: “I had to get up at 5am to go to car boot sales so I had money to buy food for the week.”
Starr was left looking after her son Elliott, 14. Police were called when Elliott alleged Starr head-butted him during a row.
Sophie said: “I got a call from my mum. Elliott had cut his lip and it was bleeding. We left that house with none of our belongings and we haven’t seen him since.
“That was the tipping point for me and I’ve contacted a solicitor to start a divorce.”
Sophie moved to a house nearby.
The mansion was sold and Starr vanished. She said she has been left to rely on handouts from friends and family.
She also blasted Starr’s claims in an interview last month that their marriage had never been fully consummated.
Sophie fumed: “I was gobsmacked when I read that. How dare he say that? Freddie knows that divorce proceedings are going to happen and he’s trying to have it annulled so he doesn’t have to pay us anything.”
Starr, living in an apartment in the Costa del Sol, says he is broke and too ill to return to the UK. He has said: “This is where I’m going to die.”
But last night he branded Sophie “a nutter” and denied subjecting her to any physical or domestic abuse.
He also denied assaulting Elliott, insisting: “There was no head-butt. It’s not still under investigation. This happened six months ago. If they were going to press charges they would have pressed them by now.
“The police decided to take no further action because there was nothing wrong with him, they couldn’t find a mark on him.”
He added: “I deny ever verbally or physically abusing her. I deny that completely. It’s completely phoney and false.”
Responding to the claims that Sophie’s belongings had gone, Starr said his ex-wife Donna had put them in the garage for three months and she never collected them.
5 times wed in troubled life
1975: Wed Sandy Morgan, a chorus line girl. But he said she turned cold after having two daughters and a son: “It was like having sex with a sack of coal.” Divorced in 1993.
1996: Had baby with manager Trudy Coleman but split months later.
1998: Married Donna Smith, who was 27 years younger than him. They divorced in 2003, remarried in 2006 and divorced again in 2010.
2012: Arrested in sex abuse inquiry but case later dropped by CPS.
2013: Wed pregnant Sophie Lea.
2015: Said to be suicidal after splitting from Sophie. Later fled to Spain over a £1million legal bill.
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