Paul O'Grady's 'secret' wife has spoken about her marriage to the ITV star who died aged 67 last month and explained why she did not attend his funeral this week. Teresa Fernandes was secretly married to the much-loved star for 28 years, reports Birmingham Live.
Teresa, who married Paul in 1977 to stop her being deported, told the Daily Mail: "We probably enjoyed one of the longest marriages in showbiz! Paul was a very special, close friend of mine, but we didn't really love each other.
"I was lesbian and he was gay so the marriage would never have worked but we had a great time as friends and even though it was almost 50 years ago I have great memories. Of course I was sad when I heard Paul had died, he was always a good friend but I hadn't seen him since the early 1980s. We just drifted apart at around the time he started to get famous, but I didn't go to the funeral because it's too far for me to travel."
Speaking about the marriage previously, 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."
Paul eventually re-married to Andre Porasio in 2017, saying: "Julian [Clary] put the seed in my head. He said, 'I've got married. You should'." Paul said that he was "right" because it "protected" his partner if anything happened to him, adding: "It makes sense".
He continued: "You feel more committed. You have made a vow, you have to stick to it. But we still fight like cat and dog. Married life is the same as before. We have known each other so long. Nothing has changed, really. And it's nice. I like saying I'm married – better than saying I'm a divorcee, which I was before."
