Nicola Sturgeon concerned for welfare of Peter Murrell after split
The former FM said she still speaks to her ex-husband and is worried about him.
Nicola Sturgeon has said she fears for her former husband’s welfare and still loves him despite their split.
The ex- first minister also revealed she is not on dating app Tinder and has laughed off claims she was in a “lavender marriage” with Peter Murrell.
Sturgeon was speaking to radio host Iain Dale on his LBC show last week when she was asked about her current relationship with the former SNP chief executive, who is awaiting trial on fraud charges.
She said: “We communicate. Obviously I’m concerned about how he is, so from that point of view yes. I’m concerned about his wellbeing.”
She revealed the couple do not discuss “anything of note” and refer to Murrell’s pending court case as “the thing”.
She said: “We don’t talk about ‘the thing’… That’s not what I call it… I possibly sometimes call it things that are less polite than that. I’m obviously concerned about his wellbeing so yes we do [talk] but not about anything of particular note.”
Sturgeon was speaking to Dale as part of the promotional tour for her memoir, Frankly, released two weeks ago.
She laughed off Dale’s suggestion by online gossips that she and Murrell had been in a “lavender marriage”, where both were gay and the relationship was “fake”.
She said: “That’s ridiculous. It was not a fake marriage. When we got together I thought he was the one. I loved him. I still do. People say all sorts of nasty toxic things.
“You accept a degree of this is inevitable but with me that kind of determination to pry into my personal life went beyond what it should have done.
“Part of the reason I’ve chosen to open up about my personal life in this book is because after that I want to try and redraw the boundary between the public and the private.”
The former first minister added: “I am just out of a lengthy marriage and a pretty torrid couple of years of my life. I’m enjoying being single and thats as far as I’m going to go right now.
“I was so focused on work when I was younger. I’m living a delayed adolescence. I’m not on Tinder, absolutely not. I wouldn’t even know how to get on it, can you imagine? I am not on Tinder, don’t come looking for me.”
Sturgeon’s book has caused controversy with supporters of Sturgeon’s predecessor Alex Salmond, and his family, who have suggested Sturgeon was part of a conspiracy that tried to have him convicted of sexual assault.
Salmond faced trial over sexual assault allegations but was acquitted on all charges in 2020.
The Sunday Mail previously revealed Salmond’s wife Moira was planning to continue his lawsuit against the Scottish Government over its botched sexual harassment probe into him.
Sturgeon said she considered taking out the chapter of her book on Alex Salmond as she “didn’t want to cause any hurt to his family, in particular his wife” but said: “I stand by everything I have said in the book…Some of the people who are being critical of me for writing my side of this are the same people who claim, completely wrongly, that I was part of a conspiracy against him.
“We seem to be in a position where they want to be able to continue to do that but they don’t want me to have the ability to defend myself and to say actually what happened. “I take responsibility for my behaviour and the deicisons I make but what happened to Alex was not my fault. If people are going to continue to say it was, I need to be able to set out the reality.”
Asked if she would pick up the phone to Moira, Sturgeon said: “I don’t think Moira would welcome that.
“I haven’t spoken to Moira for a long time. She’s somebody I interacted with in my earlier time in politics.
“If there was any sense Moira wanted that then of course but I don't think that would be a kind thing for me to do to Moira.
“I have no ill will towards Moira… But I’m not going to sit back and accept this version of events that what happened to Alex was somehow instigated by me or its my fault.”