Maurice Saatchi considered ‘ending it all’ after wife's death - then found love at 79
Maurice Saatchi has revealed he considered "ending it all" after the shock of losing his wife, Josephine Hart - but he has fallen in love again, 12 years after Hart’s passing.
In a new interview with The Times, the 78-year-old baron revealed he was "in love again" and is in a relationship with Lynn Forester de Rothschild, who was formerly married to the late Sir Evelyn de Rothschild.
Saatchi, who was one-half of the advertising powerhouse Saatchi & Saatchi alongside his brother Charles Saatchi, reflected on mourning his wife over the last decade before finding love in later life.
He told the publication he "nearly went under", adding: "I did think of ending it all. It was such a shock to lose your soulmate."
Elsewhere in the interview, Saatchi said: "I thought life was over. People say I was very miserable and unhappy for years. I don’t remember it, but it must have been because I was in mourning. The nature of Josephine’s death was dire. It felt like a calamity, a catastrophe."
Saatchi and Hart were friends with the de Rothschilds and frequently had dinner and went on holidays together. But then Hart died in 2011 and Evelyn died in 2022, and the group "went from four to three to two," Saatchi said.
The widow and widower remained friends, and Saatchi said "it never occurred to me or her" that their relationship would change.
"I never thought, 'Wow, Lynn is very attractive', although obviously she is. She never thought, 'I wonder what he’d be like?' Until we did," he recalled. "I know the exact time it flipped. We were at Harry’s Bar for dinner. How do you get from a platonic relationship into a romantic one is a mystery. But it happened in a split second, in the eyes.
"Everything changes. I really hadn’t thought about any woman except Josephine for years. But Lynn suddenly said something and then I felt it. I was shocked. But she is a formidable, fascinating woman and I realised that we could make it happen."
Saatchi has been outspoken about his grief over the loss of Hart. He told the Daily Mail in 2013 that he visited her grave every morning to have breakfast with her and talk to her, but "there are no answers".
The couple were married for 27 years before Hart died. Saatchi said they relived their honeymoon in Paris every year, going to the "same hotel, the same tables at the same restaurants in the same order".
Hart was diagnosed with primary peritoneal cancer, a rare cancer that forms in the tissue lining the abdomen. She went to see a doctor after experiencing a stomach ache for several days and was told shortly after that her cancer was 'advanced" and "inoperable". She died 14 months later.
In his most recent interview, Saatchi reflected on how he and Lynn are navigating their new relationship. He said the fact both of them have lost their spouses has a "practical benefit".
"In that if the two living people, the new lovers, knew and liked the two deceased, it helps greatly. We can chat about them… I can say, 'Josephine was brilliant', she can say, 'Evelyn was wonderful', and neither of us feels threatened."
Read more about sex and relationships:
How long it takes for single parents to fall in love again (Yahoo Life UK, 6-min read)
How middle-age Brits look for love as they believe in 'chance encounters' (NottinghamshireLive, 3-min read)
"I Still Think Of Her Daily": Older Adults Are Sharing If They Still Have Feelings For "The One Who Got Away" (BuzzFeed, 11-min read)
