Nigella Lawson ‘to rent a home in Los Angeles’ as Charles Saatchi claims: I was wiping her nose

 
David Gardner25 June 2013
The Weekender

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Nigella Lawson is planning to escape the spotlight surrounding her marriage to millionaire art collector Charles Saatchi by spending more time in America, it was claimed today.

Friends say that Ms Lawson may bring forward plans to fly to Los Angeles at the end of the summer to film a second series of her US TV series The Taste. She is looking at renting a house in LA during filming.

Details of the possible move came as she begins a second week living apart from her husband after the publication of pictures apparently showing Mr Saatchi grabbing his wife’s neck as they dined at Scott’s restaurant.

“Going to America may give Nigella the space from her husband to help find a way to repairing the damage that has been done,” said a Los Angeles TV source. “After all that has happened in the past couple of weeks, the States may be her best way of finding the privacy she needs.”

The Taste — a culinary version of The Voice — is set to be brought back for a second season by US network ABC. Auditions for contestants are being held in Los Angeles, New York, Nashville and Chicago.

The reality contest, which co-stars US chef and author Anthony Bourdain, features Ms Lawson and other judges ruling on food with blind single-spoon tastings. The first season did little to raise her profile in America, where she remains relatively unknown.

There were reports today that the incident at Scott’s in Mayfair may have lasted as long as 27 minutes. Further images show him twisting his wife’s nose and putting a finger in her nostril. Mr Saatchi told the Standard today that “even domestic goddesses sometimes have a bit of snot in their nose. I was trying to fish it out”.

He earlier claimed that the original images of the pair merely showed a “playful tiff” but a day later he accepted a caution for assault from police.

Ms Lawson, 53, left their £14 million Chelsea home with her two children and has reportedly moved in to a £10,000-a-week apartment in Mayfair.

She has refused to make any comment but has been photographed in the street without her wedding ring.

Ms Lawson and Mr Saatchi are not believed to have spoken to each other since Ms Lawson left home following the publication of the photographs.

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