John Cleese: I wish my ex-wives were dead
John Cleese has joked that he wishes his ex-wives were dead.
The 77-year-old comedian has been married four times and paid out over $30 million in divorce settlements, and has now admitted he wouldn’t be too bereft if "one or two of them" were struck by a falling tree.
Appearing on chat show ‘Conan’ alongside Eric Idle – with whom he is currently on tour in North America – the ‘Fawlty Towers’ actor referenced his second wife Barbara Trentham who died in 2013 after suffering from leukaemia.
He said: "I have been married for 34 years. To four different wives. One of my ex-wives died, did you know that? It was very sad because it was the wrong one!"
The show’s host Conan O’Brien then asked the ‘Monty Python’ star if he had any real anger toward his former spouses – who alongside Barbara are Connie Booth and Alyce Eichelberger.
John said: "No, no [I have no anger toward them]. I’d be quite happy if one or two of them were dead, but I have nothing against them. I don’t have anything against them as people."
Eric, 73, then added: "You wish them dead in the nicest possible way."
To which John replied: "In the nicest possible way, yes. And not slow, agonising death, sort of drawn out over many many years or anything like that. Something quick like a tree falling on them."
The news comes after John – who is now married to Jennifer Wade who is 32 years his junior – famously headed out on his ‘Alimony Tour’ in 2011 in order to fund his bitter divorce from third wife and psychotherapist Alyce.
He said previously: "She went after me really quite brutally by hiring the nastiest – and I don’t mean the second nastiest or the third nastiest – but the nastiest lawyer in Santa Barbara.
"My wife went and hired this really nasty woman and I had to give her $20 million. It’s not fair."
