Former Page 3 model Rhian Sugden has broken her silence on her “affair” with married DJ Vernon Kay. The dad-of-two was in a high-profile relationship with his now ex-wife Tess Daly at the time, when he met Rhian in a nightclub in 2010 and the pair exchanged numbers. They messaged each other for four months, with Vernon also exchanging texts with “four or five girls”. He insisted it was just banter and argued that he never acted inappropriately, publicly apologising to his wife Tess.
Marriage ends
Earlier this year, the pair confirmed they were calling it quits on their marriage with a joint statement. They said: “After much consideration, and with a deep sense of care and respect for one another, we have made the decision to separate amicably.”
Rhian speaks out
Now 39-year-old Rhian has opened up on her part in the scandal in her new autobiography. She told The Mirror: “Of course there’ll be mention of him [Vernon, in the book] but I think people are expecting some wild revelation about a sordid affair that didn’t happen.
“People get less of a sentence for murder. I'd understand if there'd been a full-blown affair, but there wasn't. Yet somehow, nearly 20 years later, it's still something that follows me around.
“I’ve spent years building a career and businesses that I'm incredibly proud of, and I'd much rather people talked about those than one chapter of my life that refuses to go away.”
Sources defend Rhian
Sources also claimed that the book “isn’t about reopening old wounds or settling scores”, adding: “Rhian and Vernon both moved on with their lives, but somehow it's always Rhian whose name gets dragged back into the headlines.”
Previous comments
Back in 2020, Rhian said: “He just got away with it. It ruined everything for me. I felt like I was going up and up with my career and then that came along. I wish I’d never met him.”
Vernon apologised on BBC Radio 1 to his wife and called himself an “idiot” for his part in the messages. He also shared his side of the story on I’m A Celeb, telling his campmates: “All that stuff is in the past, we've forgotten about that, we've moved on. It's all gone. It's disappeared.”
