Nigella Lawson and Charles Saatchi: In happier times

London, July 31: Nigella Lawson, the “domestic goddess” of TV fame, and her multimillionaire art collector husband, Charles Saatchi, were today granted a decree nisi in the High Court in London in a process that took less than 60 seconds.

Thus, their high profile 10-year marriage, in which everything seemed outwardly perfect, ended not with a huge legal squabble over money and with bitter recriminations but with a whimper.

Saatchi, 70, who is estimated to be worth £135 million, and Nigella, who is said to have amassed anything up to £20 million herself from her best selling books and television programmes, will have to wait a minimum of six weeks and one day before qualifying for a decree absolute.

Today, there was almost a sense of anti-climax in Court 9 of the High Court’s building at First Avenue Road when the names of Charles Saatchi and Nigella Lawson were thrown in with a job lot of 14 other divorcing couples.

Neither Saatchi nor Nigella was present and their high profile lawyers also did not feel the need to attend.

There were 13 reporters present who listened along with the District Judge Anne Aitken as an assistant read out the names of the 15 divorcing couples.

Each no doubt had a complicated and painful story but in court it was pretty much a soulless affair.

The judge asked: “Does any party or person wish to show cause against decrees being made or in the question of costs?” There were no last minute quibbles. A decree nisi is a legal instrument which states the court does not see any reason why a couple should not divorce.

Nigella and Saatchi have said they will not make financial claims against each other. This was Saatchi’s third marriage and Nigella’s second.

It seems a long time has passed judging by the coverage there has been since June 18 but in reality only 44 days have lapsed since the Sunday People newspaper splashed highly damaging photographs of Saatchi with his hand round his wife’s throat during what he later dismissed as a “playful tiff” at a restaurant.

He accepted a police caution for assault but insisted he was being unfairly projected as a boorish thug.

It was Saatchi who then moved to end the marriage but in an odd way. He gave an interview to the Mail on Sunday in which he more or less made it appear it was Nigella’s fault for not backing him up and declaring he had never been a violent man.

“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,” Saatchi told the paper.