Martin Clunes' four words that ended his marriage

Before Martin Clunes found love with TV producer Philippa Braithwaite, he was married to "party animal" Lucy Aston, who has spoken out about the four-word statement that was the demise of their relationship.

The former couple got married in 1990, but they began to grow apart after their careers moved in different directions. Out There star Martin was starring in Men Behaving Badly and Saving Grace while his first wife was training to become a crisis counsellor.

While they had previously enjoyed a very active social life together, she began swapping nights out for studying which saw Martin reportedly label her as "dull and boring", according to The Mirror.

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In 1997, Lucy recalled that they had an argument at a Chinese restaurant after he attended a party alone, and the dinner finished with Martin stating: "You are an embarrassment."

This sparked a chain of events that saw her hand back her wedding ring.

"He told me I was boring and different and I just thought: 'No more.' I stood up and said, 'Thanks for dinner - this is the end' and stormed out. I sat in the car shaking with rage," she said, before taking a drive and returning to their North London flat."Later I went back and Martin was sitting there, surrounded by takeaway cartons filled with our meal. He just looked at me. I took off my gold wedding ring, slammed it on the table and walked out.

"We both knew it was over. I was furious when I found out he had gone to a party without telling me. Worse than that, he had said he was going out with just a couple of male actor friends.

"He tried to make out he had told me, but the truth is he just didn't want me there. The sad thing is I had become an embarrassment to him."

They split in 1993 and their divorce was finalised in 1997 – by which time Martin was with his second wife Philippa, whom he married that year, and Lucy was expecting a child with her new partner.

He met the TV producer while working and went on to propose while filing a holiday programme in Hawaii, telling Irish News: "It was the longest we'd been apart, and I missed her so much that I proposed, while she was really jet lagged and in such a strange place."

While discussing his relationship with Philippa, Martin also previously addressed the end of his first marriage, which he called "rotten".

He told the Mail's Weekend magazine in 2008: "I don't know if I was searching for anything. Maybe I was. I kind of found it without looking. When I met Philippa I was coming out of a rotten marriage, and was very resistant to the idea of getting involved again."

Hurt by the comment, Lucy later responded: "I want Martin to stop telling everyone what a failure it was and what an awful time he had. In truth, I was the one who had a terrible time. I'll always love Martin, but he needs to take responsibility for the collapse of our marriage instead of constantly dismissing it so scathingly in public."

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