Television chef Nigella Lawson’s husband has announced that he is divorcing her, by releasing a statement to a Sunday newspaper.

Charles Saatchi, 70, told the Mail on Sunday of his disappointment that Nigella had not defended him publicly after he was pictured grabbing her throat outside a Mayfair restaurant last month.

Art collector Saatchi said; “I feel that I have clearly been a disappointment to Nigella during the last year or so, and I am disappointed that she was advised to make no public comment to explain that I abhor violence of any kind against women, and have never abused her physically in any way.”

The couple in happier times

Saatchi was pictures with his hands around Nigella’s neck outside popular celebrity haunt Scott’s on June 9^th. Lawson appeared to be crying in the shocking pictures, and in the following days she was seen carrying boxes of her possessions out of the couple’s home.

Nigella is due to return to the states soon to film a second series of her American television show ‘The Taste’, and is expected to be based in LA for the near future, along with her children Cosima, 19, and Bruno, 17.

Multiple reports suggest that Lawson has invited Saatchi’s daughter Pheobe to join the family, but that Charles will be barred from the property.

Charles Saatchi's full statement read:

I am sorry to announce that Nigella Lawson and I are getting divorced.

This is heartbreaking for both of us as our love was very deep, but in the last year we have become estranged and drifted apart.

I feel that I have clearly been a disappointment to Nigella during the last year or so, and I am ­disappointed that she was advised to make no public comment to explain that I abhor violence of any kind against women, and have never abused her physically in any way.

The row photographed at Scott's restaurant could equally have been Nigella grasping my neck to hold my attention - as indeed she has done in the past, although not in front of Scott's with a photographer snapping away.

I must stress again my actions were not violent. We are instinctively tactile people. Yes, my hands were around her neck, and they had been touching her arm.

Difficult as it may be to believe, for those who have seen the pictures, there was no pressure applied to her.

In fact it was merely a gesture - one to which a still photograph gives a wholly different and incorrect implication.

Nigella has given a statement to the police to support this view.

I am sorry that we had a row. I am sorry that she was upset. I am even more sorry that this is the end of our marriage.

I wish Nigella only the best for the future, and for her continuing global success.

She remains the most wonderful woman in the world. I feel very fortunate to have had such a lovely wife for many years.