Julia Keys, Richard Keys’ ex-wife, apparently had no idea of his recent marriage to his daughter’s friend, Lucie Rose, until two hours before the wedding.
The 66-year-old former anchor married his daughter Jemma’s 35-year-old pal.
The couple was sighted in Kingswear, Devon, on Saturday, in what seemed to be a private outdoor ceremony, with the bride wearing a gorgeous, flowery, white wedding gown with a long veil and taking her vows next to Keys, who was dressed in a light grey suit.
This follows his divorce from Julia in 2016, following an alleged affair with his new wife, which he has always denied.
According to rumours, neither Jemma, 38, nor Keys’ son Joshua were present at the wedding.
And it’s now been claimed that Julia was unaware of the wedding until she received a text message two hours before, a friend reported to MailOnline.
Julia also told the publication: ‘What can I say – I’m in a new relationship now and I’ve put Richard and our marriage behind me now.
‘I wish him and Lucie all the best. If that’s what makes him happy then I’m happy for him but as for me it’s all in the past now. I’m in a new relationship and I’m really happy and that’s all I want to focus on.
‘It looks as if he is happy as well from the photographs so all the best to them. As I say anything to do with Richard and our marriage is in the past so I wish them well.’
Julia said in 2018 that she was ‘devastated’ when her 34-year marriage ended while she was recuperating from thyroid cancer.
But Keys has denied an affair took place, saying: ‘I’ll mention the unmentionable for you. Did I leave my wife fighting cancer? No.’
He continued to The Athletic, during an interview in 2019: ‘I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why our marriage ended the way it did, but my wife was fighting cancer for seven years before I left her and she had been in remission for seven years.
‘She and I went to London every day of her fight, prior to a ground-breaking operation that saw her in a period of recovery.
‘Julia had been in remission for seven years. I know how hard it was for her when things went wrong.
‘I wasn’t going to start engaging in a tit-for-tat, he-said, she-said, respond to everything that was said about me.
‘If people believe that I walked away with my wife fighting cancer with a friend of my daughter’s. I can’t change that now.
‘Tell a lie twice and it becomes the truth. Tell it on social media and it haunts you forever. I didn’t fall in love with a friend of my daughter’s.’
In April 2018, Julia wrote about her husband’s alleged affair in her book The MANScript, saying, according to Mail Online: ‘Richard’s affair didn’t just devastate my world, but the world of our children Jemma and Josh too.
‘It is only now, two years on, that he has admitted he did have an affair with Lucie, as well as acknowledging his deceit and the damage it has caused.’
That same year, Jemma revealed that her mother discovered WhatsApp messages from Lucie on Keys’ phone while they were on vacation.
‘I heard Mum shouting, ‘Your father’s been having an affair,’ ‘ Jemma told the Daily Mail. ‘My heart stopped. Then I asked, ‘With who?”
Keys had his big break in 1984 as the primary anchor of ITV’s breakfast show TV-am, before leaving for in 1990, where he led their Premier League and UEFA Champions League coverage, as well as working for Al Jazeera.
In 2008, he resigned from the broadcaster after being filmed making inappropriate remarks towards linesman Sian Massey.
Why did Richard Keys leave ?
Keys and his co-commentator Andy Grey were embroiled in a sexism issue in which they were overheard making disparaging remarks about female referee Sian Massey.
They later apologised after being caught on film referring to female assisting referees.
Keys had said: ‘Somebody better get down there and explain offside to [Massey].
Gray replied: ‘Yeah, I know. Can you believe that? Female linesman. Forget what I said – they probably don’t know the offside rule.’
Keys then said ‘Course they don’t,’ to which Gray replied: ‘Why is there a female linesman? Somebody’s f***** up big.’
Keys later said: ‘Prehistoric banter isn’t acceptable in the modern world. I accept that. We failed to change when the world has changed. We wholeheartedly apologise for our behaviour. It was wrong. I deserve to be battered. I can stand up and take a beating. I’m not sorry for me, I’m sorry for Sian Massey.’
Gray also said: ‘If off-air conversations of television and radio presenters were recorded, there would be no one left working. That is not to defend what happened.’
After 12 years apart, the couple appeared in a Piers Morgan Uncensored interview.
During the interview, Keys stated that he’regretted’ his statements and added, ‘In isolation, my querying if she was aware of the offside legislation was wrong.’
