TV chef Nigella Lawson said Thursday she is not proud of snorting cocaine and smoking pot, but ‘fessed up to avoid being “bullied by lies” from her ex-hubby, millionaire art collector Charles Saatchi.
“I have been frank, and the fact is I would rather be honest, if ashamed, and explain the drug use rather than be bullied with lies about something that happened in a humiliating and very public way,” Lawson testified during the London fraud trial of her two former personal assistants.
Lawson said it was her “duty to come (to court). I felt it would be an unpleasant experience, but that’s not an excuse not to do one’s civic duty.”
The ex-employees, Italian sisters Elisabetta and Francesca Grillo, are charged with using Saatchi’s credit cards to finance a lavish lifestyle of designer duds and luxury vacations.
Their lawyer alleges that Lawson sanctioned their wild spending to keep their mouths shut about what they claimed was her daily use of cocaine for a decade.
The drug allegations against the celebrity chef and cookbook author surfaced about the same time Saatchi was photographed with his hand gripping Lawson’s throat in June at the posh restaurant Scott’s in London’s West End.
Saatchi got a police warning for assault, and the couple announced they would divorce soon afterward.
Lawson told the court she mainly objected to the charge “that I was taking drugs at Scott’s,” a reference to Saatchi’s contention that he was wiping coke residue from her nose at the eatery.
On Wednesday, Lawson admitted under oath that she snorted coke and smoked pot for emotional survival.
The British chef, a judge on ABC’s cooking competition “The Taste,” copped to using cocaine seven times and marijuana on other occasions to get her through tough times.
But she blew off allegations of daily drug use.
“I have never been a drug addict. I’ve never been a habitual user,” said Lawson, who also hosts cooking shows on Food Network and its spin-off Cooking Channel.
“There are two times in my life when I have used cocaine,” testified Lawson, host of the cable shows “Nigella’s Kitchen,” “Nigella Bites” and “Nigellissima.”