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‘The food was good but expensive’: £8m John Cleese, 82, laments how much cash he’s spent in private members’ club after those costly divorces – as wife Jennifer Wade, 51, leaves carrying a plush toy dragon
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John Cleese and his wife Jennifer Wade were pictured leaving trendy private members’ bar Oswald’s in London’s Albemarle street on Tuesday night.
The Monty Python icon, 82, is set to be worth an estimated £8million but couldn’t help but be shocked at the prices while celebrating his friend’s 80th birthday.
While leaving he said: ‘The food was good but it is very expensive.’
‘The food was good but expensive’: £8m John Cleese, 82, lamented how much cash he spent in private members’ club Oswald’s on Tuesday night with wife Jennifer Wade, 51
As you do! Jennifer was seen leaving with a plush toy dragon in hand
Club membership around £2,500 a year and the house champagne is Krug. Prince William and Boris Johnson are both members.
Wines are sold for around retail prices, with members also allowed to cellar up to 12 of their own there and no corkage fees applied.
Moreover, Jennifer, 51, was pictured carrying a plush toy dragon in hand and was seen messing around with it, holding it behind John’s back.
Spending the cash: Club membership around £2,500 a year and the house champagne is Krug. Prince William and Boris Johnson are both members. Wines are sold for around retail prices, with members also allowed to cellar up to 12 of their own there and no corkage fees applied
The club has aimed to attract female members as well as couples and is owned by entrepreneur Robin Birley who named it after his grandfather, the portrait artist Sir Oswald Birley who painted Winston Churchill.
John has regularly joked about how his three divorces have cost him his fortune. In 2015, he brought up his costly divorce from third wife Alyce Faye Eichelberger.
Chatting to Sunrise Live Australia, he referenced his marriage breakdown to Alyce Faye Eichelberger and quipped: ‘The last time I paid for sex it cost me $20 million!’
Costly divorces: John has said it was his divorce from U.S. radio host Alyce Eichelberger, who he was married to from 1992 to 2008, that burned the biggest hole in his pocket (seen in 2002)
The Fawlty Towers star has long been open in discussing his divorce with Eichelberger, after having had to pay her £600,000-a-year for seven years since they divorced in 2008 after 16 years of marriage.
However, he has now finished with the payments after she was finally awarded a total of £12million in finance and assets.
He famously went on the road with his Alimony Tour in 2011 to raise cash for Alyce’s settlement and he admitted the divorce bill was one of the main motivations for him to rejoin the Pythons for a series of live shows.
The star got remarried in 2012 to Jennifer Wade in the exotic location of Mustique.
He was wed to his Fawlty Towers co-star Connie Booth from 1968 to 1978 and then to American actress Barbara Trentham from 1981 to 1990.
The comedian has spoken out before about the alimony payments, calling them ‘completely ridiculous.’
He once said: ‘I was comfortably well off before I got divorced from Alyce. I never knew how much I really had – I was just comfortable.
‘But now I’ve been working for seven years to pay off the alimony. She’s far better off than I am. So you could sit around being bitter about that. Or you can just think it’s completely ridiculous.’
Looking back: John was first married to his former Fawlty Towers co-star Connie Booth from 1968 to 1978 (couple pictured on show)
Past marriage: He was later married to American actress Barbara Trentham from 1981 to 1990 (couple pictured in 1989)