Monty Don stole his friend's wife, and doesn't regret it for one second
Monty Don admitted he doesn't feel bad at all about stealing his friend's wife, reflecting that "you can pussyfoot around" when it comes to affairs of the heart.
The Gardener's World star says he has "no regrets at all" about falling for his now wife Sarah Erskine while she was still married to her first husband - a wealthy botanist who Monty, now 68, would socialise and go out riding with. Monty felt an "intense attraction" to Sarah, now 69, from the start, with the pair first locking eyes at Cambridge University, and was disappointed to learn she was already married.
Although the famed horticulturist states that it was never his intention to "pinch someone else's wife", everything changed when Sarah's husband, who she'd married when she was just 19 years old, headed off on a four-month work trip.
Everything changed when Sarah's first husband headed off on a work trip (Popperfoto via Getty Images)During an interview last year on the podcast White Wine Question Time, Germany-born Monty opened up about his 44-year marriage, confessing that the beginning of their love story was obviously "complicated". Monty recalled: "I don't think it was love at first sight. I think it was intense attraction at first sight. Her husband was someone that I rode with and knew very well, and that was the case for about six months where I'd meet them socially.
"I remember thinking in a sort of quite banal way, 'How come that she met him before she met me? Why's the person that you feel strongly attracted to with somebody else? Marriage or not'. It never crossed my mind that it could be anything else. It wasn't like I was trying to pinch someone else's wife - there was no question of that."
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Sarah and Monty's "paths crossed" while Sarah's first husband was away on his lengthy field trip, and they soon found they enjoyed spending time together "in a completely platonic innocent way". The pair's feelings for each other grew stronger over the weeks that followed, however, leaving them facing a dilemma.
Monty shared: "You know that thing when you're very attracted to somebody you don't go too close to them, or you don't dare show too much interest or whatever. It turned out that we both felt the same way. But she was married to someone else and so it was very difficult. She decided that she absolutely didn't want to sort of have an affair. She chose me and it was for about six months an extremely difficult, unhappy tormented setup because he obviously was not very happy with that arrangement. He completely reasonably felt betrayed and very, very, very angry."
Considering whether or not he felt guilty about how things turned out, Monty continued: "The point is I've always felt a bit guilty about it, but at the same time there is a kind of ruthlessness. All is fair in love and war. You can't pussyfoot about. If you decide to be with someone and it means breaking up their marriage, you can't then say 'Oh I feel really bad about this'."
Monty and Sarah tied the knot in 1983, and have weathered various ups and downs together, including bankruptcy in the 1980s following the collapse of their jewellery business, and Monty's struggles with depression. They share three children Adam, Freya, and Tom - all now believed to be adults in their 30s - as well as multiple grandchildren.
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