Richard Keys has rubbished rumours he ran off with his daughter’s best mate 31 years his junior while his wife suffered with cancer.
The former Sky Sports presenter split with his first wife Julia in 2016, before marrying Lucie Rose, his daughter’s good friend, in 2023.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Keys insisted the nature of Lucie’s relationship with his daughter Jemma had been misrepresented.
He said: “What’s damaging is that people presume I ran away with my daughter’s best mate, locked her in a room, and gave her no choice about whether she wanted to be with me or not.
“All of which is nonsense. Lucie’s one of the most powerful, strong-minded individuals you’ll come across. She’s deeply passionate about women’s rights.
“People see me as an easy target, but the narrative is not fair on her. It’s totally wrong.”
His ex-wife Julia, a psychotherapist, filed for divorce on the grounds of Keys’ alleged affair with Lucie.
She subsequently wrote an infidelity survival guide, claiming Keys’ behaviour “didn’t just devastate my world, but the world of our children Jemma and Josh, too”.
Many believe that Keys had abandoned Julia while she was fighting for her life in 2016.
But Keys refused to acknowledge this charge, rebutting: “I’ve never sat with anybody and talked about this, but I didn’t leave Julia dying of cancer, or suffering with cancer.
“Sadly, she had cancer in 2008 and ’09, and we ran into a genius surgeon who removed it. During that period, we travelled 30 days straight to find the best specialists at the best hospitals, the best anaesthetists.”
In 2017, Keys himself underwent eight hours of surgery to fix a thoracic aortic aneurysm, a fatal condition known as a “silent killer” because it often shows no symptoms.
He added: “I sat with my surgeon, Ulrich Rosendahl, on a Monday and he said: ‘We’re going to have to operate.’ ‘What’s your time frame?’ I asked. ‘Well, I’ll clear the diary on Thursday.”
Rosendahl later revealed Keys was two days away from death if the operation had been delayed.
About how his relationship with Lucie blossomed, Keys said: “I never expected my marriage would end after 34 years, but Lucie bowled into my life and, wow, what a force of nature. And the rest is history.”
He added that they met in a bar in Qatar, and she approached him initially out of concern after noticing he had mistakenly taken double his prescribed dose of blood pressure medication.
In January, Keys received more online flak for poorly wording a tribute to his Coventry City idol Terry Yorath, after the latter died at age 75.
Keys wrote on X: “He was great for us at Coventry and the reason I got Gabby a job at Sky. I had no idea who she was when we met. RIP Terry. Your daughter did you proud.”
The backhanded compliment of presenter Gabby Logan was met with instant backlash.
Lucie, a partner in private funds at one of New York’s largest law firms, said about Keys: “For me, the most important thing is people’s ability to change and evolve.
“I met someone who was traumatised, to an extent, by the culture he lived through. Except somehow he is marked as being the cause of it. I don’t think that’s fair – it’s not who he is.”
– This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission.
