Liz Jones' ex husband, Nirwal Dhaliwal, writes excoriating account of marriage to Liz Jones

[FreshFreesias]

Liz Jones's ex wrote a pulverising article about their marriage yesterday.

I couldn't blame him really, as she writes about him nearly every week in really dismissive terms, and there are always 2 sides to a story.
She always describes lavishing him with expensive gifts and how rotten, lazy and ungrateful he was, but he actually walked away with no money at all - to his credit as at that time she was very well paid.

He writes: My ex is the newspaper columnist Liz Jones who, during our time together, turned her one-sided take on our relationship into a lucrative industry, churning out thousands of articles. I still appear in her work now, despite not speaking to her in 12 years. I came to live in a gilded Islington cage, lavished with unrequested gifts, and holidays as Liz spent some of the fortune she made from writing about me – mostly derisively – no doubt in the hope that I wouldn’t leave.
Our marriage was doomed from our wedding day: an occasion I felt swindled into, having never proposed. She arranged it without my knowledge; I found out when I discovered a receipt for the country estate. Confronted with it, she declared she’d already told the world in her column – which I no longer read – and would look a fool. She then broke down in tears, robbing me of my anger as I comforted her and agreed.
Having been depicted as little more than a gigolo, I forwent a small fortune that would have given me stability, and have lived a financially precarious life since. Naively, I had hoped she would stop pouring scorn on me in print, but she has continued to do so, banking cheque after cheque in the process.

Her writing, of course, never gave any sense of my vulnerability. The working-class product of an immigrant home wracked by alcoholism, violence and insolvency, I was, in my 20s, always going to fall under the spell of a wealthy older woman who promised me a lifestyle and security that I’d never imagined for myself'.

Just goes to show that there are always 2 sides to every story, and while Jones always portrays herself as a victim, the truth is more nuanced.

www.telegraph.co.uk/family/relationships/toxic-truth-age-gap-relationship-older-women-escape-moral/

I'm sure I read basically this piece by Nirpal Dhaliwal about 15 years ago. They both need to get over themselves.

@frumpety

I used to read her column and want to rescue her from herself. I couldn't because I have shit candles and my bedding is mainly polycotton.

I used to think the same! Not polycotton but definitely inferior candles and probably a host of other things not considered I'm sure (though I have, to be fair, standard, Illy coffee that she always talked about).

Is she really still talking about her ex husband? I haven't read her column in absolutely years.

@feellikeanalien

Oops just realised she lied about her age!

You sound surprised!

A double mastectomy at 29 what nonsense. A fantasy comment

Apparently the condom impregnation thing gave her the rather unfortunate nickname of 'Giz Loans'.

She's the woman who stole used condoms out of the bin to stuff the sperm inside her to try to make herself pregnant, and wrote about it in a national newspaper?
Despicable!

With Liz Jones everything is everybody else's fault, never hers.

The rule of if everyone falls out with you it's not them at fault it's you fits her to a T.

Her life as she tells is it one poor me whingefest. Her columns are dreadful, the latest with her wearing a fat suit and one before when she dressed as an old lady were the absolute pits.

I want to be lavished with unwanted gifts. Is this wrong?

Whatever you think about Liz Jones, I personally think she's batshit, she's obviously good at her job. I can't imagine she'd be that good at anything else. She found her niche and has done well out of it, so fair play to her.

Reading that he makes it sound as if he had no agency in all this. He was an adult. He was attracted to rich older women then complained that he felt used and exploited by them and were the sexes to be reversed, the age gap would be questioned.

I’ve no time for LJ who sounds to value luxury products and status symbols more than relationships and friendships. Someone who judges others by the brands of the products they have, their hotel and destination choices and the make of designers they wear has to be shallow and vacuous beyond belief. Sounds like they both used and deserved each other.

I thought this was going to be a resurrected Zombie thread from 2009! Why on earth is he dredging all this up. I remember the many Liz Jones threads on MN (including the endless conjecture about ‘the rockstar’).

It’s made me all nostalgic for the time when I used to buy actual, physical newspapers of a weekend.

She's definitely made the most out of her career as the person you love to hate. And obviously quite a lot of cash too - which she's frittered away on expensive, pointless crap, and IIRC, parking fines. Before she moved out of London she lived on a very expensive square a stone's throw from Upper Street, and she would drive to her favourite shops there. Atelier Isabel Aherne was one of them, which was literally just around the corner. Her car was towed more than once.

We lived nearby, but in nothing like as glamourous a property, and were amazed at her idiocy.

Ooh I'm feeling all nostalgic for those days again now

I hope she's found some happiness. She always seemed so damned sad.

*Atelier Abigail Aherne. Apologies for getting my upmarket interiors stores wrong.

Re the rockstar, at one point it was alleged to be Fish (Marillion) I'm sure I read that somewhere

A Facebook friend sees her around Yorkshire. I seem to remember wellies being mentioned but I can’t remember the context.

As the saying goes, they needed to stay together as they'd ruin another couple. Regarding her columns, when I read them I always thought that they were mostly adverts for upmarket brands, and she was getting paid for that as part of it. No matter the story, there was always one branded good mentioned. So I took the rest of the story with a large pinch of salt - rock star, me arse!

Women seem above the moral scrutiny applied to men in their sexual conduct.

I didn’t know who she was until this thread, and she sounds insane. But this bloke seems to be wilfully ignoring the whole of human history with this ^^ comment.

@TooBigForMyBoots

I want to be lavished with unwanted gifts. Is this wrong?

Whatever you think about Liz Jones, I personally think she's batshit, she's obviously good at her job. I can't imagine she'd be that good at anything else. She found her niche and has done well out of it, so fair play to her.

It's actually very uncomfortable to be "lavished with unwanted gifts" , it makes you feel beholden to the gift giver. I experienced this once, with a very predatory and potentially abusive boyfriend in my youth.

I used to read her column religiously as a teen when my parents bought MoS and continued for quite a while until even I gave up a few years ago because it got so boring and repetitive.

I met her once a few years ago and I will say she does truly seem to be as deaf as she says - and in the same way my dad has very much retreated into an inner world because he can't hear (and won't wear his flipping hearing aids ) it can come across as self-absorption when actually it's because the person finds it difficult to engage in conversation.

I also think her awful persona in print is to a large extent a persona - she plays up the prissy designer-obsessed Princess partly for humour/narrative and partly because she knows it becomes hate-reading and she can make money from it.

Still, that persona obviously is based on something with a nugget of truth and I do think that she has turned more and more into the fictionalization version of herself over the years. Because as pp says nothing is every her fault but, obviously, writing about your family and friends' in columns over 2 decades is very much your fault and it's not a surprise when they turn their backs on you.

I sussed the game with her years ago when she wrote she was having a cup of Illy rather than just saying she was having a cup of coffee. What a snob ! A petty snob at that.

I used to think that her columns were written by Nirpal himself. I really did. Then I thought they were both in on it for the money. Apparently not.

I once remarked to my Mum that LJ was still commenting on her husband's short comings long after they got divorced. (Obviously had nothing else in her life, no other material.) Yet LJ lied about so much to Nirpal i.e. her age, planning the wedding behind his back etc.

I'm not surprised he let her down in lots of ways when they were married. (Which is why I thought they were in on it together.) I'd have done similar if I felt like a puppet. She turned into a nag, anyway.

LJ seemed to just want a manservant/lapdog. Like Queen Victoria and her 'munchie.'

I kinda knew LJ moving to the country, away from London was going to be a very expensive mistake. I'm surprised she did it as she's a money and status obsessed city dweller. She seemed to want to run some sort of personal animal sanctuary. What ? Why ? Sounds like the dream of a ten year old girl.

After wasting her millions, she came crawling back to London, aghast at what it cost just to rent somewhere.

She's got a massive chip on her shoulder about being poor. In her opinion, anyway. He Dad was in the R.A.F. She lived modestly with her parents and siblings but always hankered after more. Aggrieved that she couldn't show off at school with a fashionable lunchbox and horse riding lessons etc. She carried this through to her adult life.

Got a high paid high status job in media then the spending to impress (herself) really started. She admitted she basically bought friendships by paying for dinner, for drinks, presents etc.

One of her many axes that she grinds is how hard she's worked. Never got a hand out i.e. benefits of any sort. Never really got much in the way of thanks for all the money she shelled out trying to impress her so called friends either.

Her nonsensical column is written to please the editor which is why it's pretty much the same rubbish each week.

Her endless spending on, what ? What is a diptyque candle, anyway ? Bitching about there not being enough wicks in a candle she was gifted. Being ghastly about her engagement ring not being expensive enough.

Her description/annihilation of the David who she made two attempts to marry until it ceased to be funny. I'm glad he ended up telling her exactly what he thought of her. I would have loved to see the look on her face !

The tmi cringe of yet another intimate body waxing session followed by a juvenile brag about sex. Ugh.

Oh, and Nirpal didn't propose marriage to LJ.

He remarked, 'if we're still together by this time next year, we'll probably get married.'

She heard: 'we're getting married next year.'

With that, she snatched his hand off and started wedding planning and preparations. Whilst bitching about her engagement ring not costing enough money and humiliating him about it. She got her own way over that i.e. he purchased one more to her taste/it just had to cost more to get her approval. Instead of thank you, her attitude was an unsaid, 'better.'

I'm not surprised he felt swindled/blackmailed into marriage by her tears and tantrums. I couldn't believe she had lied about her age. He was marrying a fraud.

However, as I suspected, they are pretty much as bad as each other. They both do a good line in victim.

Did she report what david had said to her?

Jim Kerr’s lawyers issued a cease and desist letter to stop her hinting he was the rock star.
Loves animals but locked her dogs in the car on a hot day while she went about her business.
Loves animals but allowed a sick elderly cat to suffer long after any animal lover would have done the decent thing.
The infamous Joanna Yeats piece.
The “joke” about Downs children ... she is a nasty piece of work.

The woman is a complete nut case. I would love to hear what David had to say to her in the end. She treated him appallingly.

I just looked up the Nellie the horse story and am appalled.