BBC historian Simon Schama has not seen childhood friend Charles Saatchi since the multi-millionaire art collector broke with wife Nigella Lawson.
“I was really … I was a bit devastated by what happened to Nigella because I love Nigella, and that was very tough,” Schama told the Radio Times. “So I haven’t seen Charles since then, actually. I was very upset by what happened.”
Saatchi accepted a police caution for assault in 2013 after he was photographed at a restaurant holding TV chef Lawson by the throat. The pair later went through an acrimonious divorce.
Schama told the Radio Times he had known Saatchi since his youth spent in north London. “Yeah, we got around a bit. I was completely the winkle-pickers and drainpipes type of guy, and we used to go to the same dances and the same salt-beef bars and all that.”
Schama was made history tsar in 2010 by then education secretary Michael Gove, with a remit to advise the government on history teaching. The informal appointment was criticised at the time by fellow TV historian Mary Beard as Gove “playing to the populist gallery”, comments which Schama said he minded, adding: “I thought it wasn’t a good-natured thing to do.”
Beard has been abused online over her appearance, with many suggesting a male presenter of a similar age would not be subject to the same scrutiny. Schama conceded he may benefit from kinder attitudes to older male presenters. “If so, I’m the beneficiary of that. But television shouldn’t be looking for ‘cute’ if it is.”
Schama, who occasionally writes for the Guardian, is presenting a BBC2 show based on his book about portraits, The Face of Britain from 30 September.
