THE EX-HUSBAND OF deceased comedian Caroline Aherne has claimed that she attacked him with knives and bottles during an abusive three-year marriage.
Peter Hook, formerly a bassist with the band New Order and founding member of Joy Division, made the claims in a new autobiography.
Aherne was best known for her roles in the Mrs Merton Show, the Fast Show and the Royle Family. She died of cancer in July.
The pair were married for three years in the 1990s and, in his autobiography Substance, Hook writes that he was “an abused husband”.
According to The Guardian, Hook writes that he “loved her” and that she was a “great comic talent” but that she also tried to “brainwash” him before she became abusive, often when she felt he was looking at other women.
“She attacked me, using her nails to scratch at my neck, tearing off my necklace and ripping my top. It was proper shocking stuff,” he writes.
And although she was really contrite the next morning it marked the beginning of some serious screaming-banshee behaviour – putting cigarettes out on my arm, attacking me with bottles, knives, chairs and other assorted furniture.
In his book, Hook says that he believes the abuse and his isolation led to him suffering from clinical depression.
“I was an abused husband and it’s embarrassing, and you feel ashamed, and you can’t tell anyone. I needed help,” he writes.
Hook also says that the pair split after an argument in which he feared she would stab him and that the following day she left their home saying:
I’m leaving, I’m going to kill you if I don’t.
Aherne’s family are reported to be critical of the timing of Hook’s allegations given that they come three months after her death.
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