The divorce that cost me £345million - and drove me to the brink of suicide, by DUNCAN BANNATYNE...

Duncan Bannatyne reveals how his happy marriage to Joanna turned toxic
Wife texted him during Dragons' Den filming to admit she'd filed for divorce
'I know people always think you would know if your wife or husband was planning a divorce, but I really, truly didn’t have a clue,' he admits...


There were a couple of times in the summer of 2011 when I waited for the train to London with tears streaming down my face. I don’t know what the other people on the platform thought, but the truth is I was thinking I could just end it all.

The fast train would be coming through any minute and it would all be over. It honestly felt as if it was the only way I could make the pain stop. It’s a terrible way to think, but divorce can have that effect. Particularly when it has come out of the blue.

A month before, I’d been filming the ninth series of Dragons’ Den when I received a text from my wife Joanne.

My hands started to shake as I read it: she said she had filed for divorce in the High Court.
I couldn’t take it in, in part because I couldn’t believe that after 18 years together she didn’t tell me in person.

I know people always think you would know if your wife or husband was planning a divorce, but I really, truly didn’t have a clue.

Not only did it crush me financially — the Sunday Times Rich List showed my wealth falling from £430 million to £85 million in two years — but the psychological damage was far worse.

And it’s not as if I was new to divorce either. Looking back I have so much respect for my first wife Gail and the way we handled our split back in 1994.

We put the children first and she wasn’t overcome by greed, suspicion or anything else.
Our marriage lasted ten years and produced four daughters Abigail, now 29, Hollie, 27, Jennifer, 21, and Eve, 19.

Gail was — and is — a wonderful woman. Once I had confessed I had fallen out of love with her, we sat down calmly and worked out how we would start to live apart.

Joanne McCue, who’s 17 years younger than me, had been a nursing manager at my business, Quality Care Homes, when we met in 1992 — the year my third daughter was born.