Paul O'Grady's secret wife said the TV star was a happy and lovely man who would "help anyone".
Teresa Fernandes was secretly married to the much-loved star for 28 years and has now broken her silence since he died. Paul died from sudden cardiac arrhythmia on March 28 and was laid to rest earlier this week.
Paul, an openly gay man, previously admitted he had married Portuguese ex-wife Teresa to stop her from being deported. He met Teresa in a gay club where they worked and decided to marry her out of "convenience" and to stop her being "hassled" by her family.
READ MORE: Paul O'Grady fans gather in Birkenhead for heartfelt rendition of Who Let The Dogs Out
Despite losing contact, they only legally divorced in 2005 after being married for 28 years, but Paul said he had never been in a relationship with her. Teresa told the Daily Mail: "Paul always made me laugh and I always used to say he would make someone very happy and he was a lovely man, we had such a good friendship and it's a shame we drifted apart.
"'Him offering to marry me to help me out was just one of those things that Paul would do, he would help anyone, he was very kind natured and you can see that, he would help anyone if they needed it. I was sad when I heard he had died, I was surprised though because every time I saw him on the TV and in the newspapers he always looked so good and he was still young, he wasn't old like me at all."
Paul, originally from Birkenhead, also had a daughter, Sharon, with his close friend Diane Jansen, in 1974. He also had a grandson, Abel and a granddaughter, Halo. Speaking about their marriage, Teresa admitted they never slept or lived together. She also told how the pair carried on working after they got married but then eventually drifted apart and had other partners.
The Mirror reported Theresa thinks she last saw Paul in the 1980s while he was performing at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern where the pair caught up about the past. The pair were eventually divorced and the date on the papers was Valentine's Day, February 14, 2005.
Speaking about the marriage, Paul said: "Teresa, I call her the lesbian Portuguese barmaid, was lovely. She looked like David Cassidy. We worked in a club in Westbourne Grove, London, when I was 22.
"She was from a very strict Catholic family and was always being hassled by them: 'Why aren't you getting married?' So I said: 'Come on then, we'll get married', and we did. We were married for 28 years."
He also admitted he had forgotten he had married the barmaid all those years ago, until his manager Brendan reminded him. His manager had told him: "If anything happened to you, everything would go to your wife. It's like a real-life Corrie storyline."
The Radio 2 star went on to marry Brazilian ballet dancer Andre Portasio, who was 25 years his junior, in 2017, after meeting at London-based gay club Showplace and becoming friends.
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