Sue Barker has revealed the “frustrating” reason she wishes she’d never “gone near” Cliff Richard, whom she dated in the 1980s.
The broadcaster, who had a brief romance with the “Summer Holiday” singer in 1981, has shared her frustrations with Richard for continuing to “harp on about me” 40 years on.
In a new book, an extract of which was shared on MailOnline, Barker, 66, wrote: “If someone had told me that my relationship with Cliff would last a few months but I’d still be hearing about it 40 years later, I wouldn’t have gone near him.”
She said that, despite remaining friends, “the only thing we fell out over was the fact he kept harping on about me in interviews”.
Barker revealed that, despite their time together being extremely brief, Richard, 81, would repeatedly provide the press with quotes that made their relationship seem more than it actually was. These included: “I didn’t love her enough to propose” and “I didn’t love her quite enough to marry her.”
“This went on and on,” Barker continued. “It really upset me.”
Barker said that, the day after her wedding to husband Lance Tankard, she read the headline: “Why I Couldn’t Marry Sue – by Cliff”, and “begged [him] to have some respect for my marriage and to stop mentioning me”.
“Frankly, it looks silly now that he’s still talking about a relationship that was never really more than a friendship,” Barker said, adding that her words “will come as no great surprise to him because I spoke to Cliff in person about this many times and I made a direct request to his agent and his manager to stop bringing up our time together in interviews”.
Barker’s autobiography, titled Calling the Shots, will be published on 29 September.
Richard is known for the songs “Summer Holiday”, “Congratulations”, “Living Doll” and “Millennium Prayer”.
