A dramatic phone call in which bankrupt business tycoon Scot Young offers his ex-wife up to £30 million to settle one of the longest, most costly and toxic divorce battles in Britain, will be made public for the first time this week in a BBC documentary.
Viewers will hear a frantic Mr Young desperately plead with his former wife, Michelle, to drop her investigation into his finances – five weeks before he mysteriously fell 60ft from the fourth-floor window of a luxury £3 million penthouse in London.
In the programme to be shown on BBC Two on January 17, Mrs Young says that her ex, a multimillionaire property developer with ties to Russian oligarchs, offered to pay the sum despite having claimed to have lost his multi-million pound fortune.
The Mail on Sunday exclusively revealed last September that the disgraced businessman, who was in a relationship with reality star Noelle Reno at the time, had made the offer during an emotionally charged final phone call, in which he warned he was a ‘dead man’ if she continued to dig into his numerous deals.
Mr Young who was in a relationship with American model Noelle Reno in 2009, a star of the Ladies Of London reality TV show, at the time of his death, had been involved with some of the wealthiest men in the world. He also had connections in the shady criminal underworld.
Listen to the phone call here:
Property developer Scot Young was at the centre of one of Britain’s most notorious divorce cases, which culminated in him being jailed for refusing to reveal how much money he was worth to his ex-wife Michelle

After the couple split Mr Young began started a relationship with American model Noelle Reno in 2009, one of the stars of the Ladies Of London reality TV show
Now viewers can hear for themselves some of that final conversation between the warring couple in Millionaires’ Ex-Wives Club.
Gaining exclusive access to the hidden world of divorces among the super-rich, an intimate documentary follows ex-wives who went into battle with their exes, spending millions of pounds and years of their lives in the process.
Scot, 52, begins by admitting that he had behaved badly and was the cause of their bitter strife.
He says: ‘I f***ed it up in the end completely, I put my hands up, and I actually apologise to you. You were a very good wife, you used to run me a bath, make me tea, you were always there for me, et cetera, et cetera.’

Michelle Young lived a lavish lifestyle with ex-husband Scot Young before that ended in 2001 when it was claimed that Scot had lost his entire fortune overnight
He then went on to make his astonishing offer saying: ‘If I had £20 million tomorrow would you be happy – yes or no?’
Mrs Young, 52, asks if the money was coming from hidden offshore assets or being plucked out of thin air.
He replies: ‘I will get cracking on a couple of ventures, okay.’
Following further heated exchanges he increases his offer to £25 million, then to £30 million ‘plus 50 per cent of any asset you find…how can you ask for any more than that?’
But when his ex-wife threatens to bring in the authorities Scot responds aggressively, telling her: ‘You’re going to end up with sweet f*** all. Okay, Michelle, on that basis it’s a waste of time. I’ve tried to be nice. I would sign up for 30 million quid to get rid of this, okay.’
Mrs Young, who accused him of hiding assets of more than £400 million in offshore accounts, says she still owes about £17million in legal fees despite being awarded £26 million by the High Court.
‘I’ve never received a penny,’ she tells the programme.
She did, however, receive £300,000 from a long forgotten life insurance policy on her ex-husband.
Scot died after being impaled on railings after falling 60ft from the fourth-floor window of a luxury £3 million penthouse in Montagu Square, central London in December 2014.
Whether he was pushed or jumped is still an open question. A coroner’s inquest ruled out suicide due to a lack of evidence, but Mrs Young has since claimed that he was killed by members of the Russian Mafia.


While going through his divorce Mr Young began dating the reality TV star in 2009. Despite claiming he was in debt he still lived a lavish lifestyle with Ms Reno
The couple had two children and lived a lavish lifestyle together, but the end came in 2001, when it was claimed that Scot had not only lost his entire fortune overnight in a big Russian property deal, but also had a breakdown. It was, says Michelle, a ruse concocted to defraud her of marital assets.
Despite London being called the divorce capital and viewed as a Mecca for the very wealthy, she says women are invariably cheated by the legal system, which favours the person who can afford the most expensive legal team.
To date, she has clocked up 65 court hearings and 13 sets of lawyers in her battle. With £17m of debts from high interest litigation loans and legal fees, Michelle has been declared bankrupt and lives in a rented basement flat in central London.
But 11 years on, she insists that she has not given up with her fight for justice.

Michelle and Scot had been married 11 years and shared two children together. They split and their divorce battle was one of the most costly and toxic divorces in Britain

Mrs Young was awarded £20million by the court after a lengthy eight-year divorce battle, but she claims she has yet to see a penny of it and is in £17million worth of debt
Produced by Lynn Alleway (Camila’s Kids Company: The Inside Story and Hotel India), the film explores some of the private battles involved in high net worth divorce cases – where the Mayfair homes, the Bentleys and yachts have to be split and hundreds of millions of pounds are at stake.
With divorce law in England and Wales now dictating that the assets have to be split 50-50 as a starting point, increasingly couples are battling it out in court.
The film meets divorce lawyers on such cases, revealing that at the very heart of these stories is an intense battle fuelled by emotion.
It is a fight in which the real winners are the high priced legal teams.
Millionaires’ Ex-Wives Club airs on BBC Two, Wednesday 17 January at 9pm