Shamed football pundit Richard Keys has secretly tied the knot with his daughter’s friend after previously denying falling in love with the young lawyer while his wife was fighting cancer.
The former Sky Sports News presenter, 66, married lawyer Lucie Rose, 34, in a hush hush £20,000 ceremony attended by only a few close family and friends, which included his son, Joshua, but not his 35-year-old daughter Jemma.
The couple split following 36 years of marriage after news of his affair emerged in 2016, with his ex wife Julia revealing how the affair ‘devastated’ her world as she recovered from thyroid cancer and also wrecked the lives of their two children.
Jemma said the affair ruined the career of her Hollyoaks actress Jemma as she spiralled into alcoholism and depression. She also faced legal action over a string of abusive texts she sent to Lucie before charges were dropped by prosecutors.
Keys – who was sacked in disgrace from his £500,000-a-year job fronting Sky’s Premier League coverage in 2011 after making disparaging remarks about female referee Sian Massey-Ellis – proposed to Lucie two years ago.
Covid postponed the wedding several times, but they finally exchanged vows last weekend in an open-air civil ceremony in Kingswear near Brixham, Devon under cobalt blue skies and blazing sunshine.
Richard Keys married Lucie Rose, a friend of his daughter Jemma, at a ceremony in Kingswear, Devon last weekend
Lucie Rose, 34, (right) is pictured with Richard Keys’ daughter Jemma, 35, who was previously one of her best friends until it emerged she was having an affair with her father
Lucie, 35, married Keys, 66 on Saturday. The former Sky Sports presenter had previously denied having an affair with her
Keys (centre) pictured with his ex-wife Julia (left) and their daughter Jemma (right)
An invite seen by MailOnline reveals how the couple booked accommodation for guests at the Marina Hotel, Dartmouth and they laid on a ferry to shuttle guests across the River to the venue.
It added: ‘Dartmouth, Kingswear and Brixham have a range of other accommodation options on offer and Lucie because we all know Dickie is useless at this would be happy to provide others if anyone needs help.’
Under the heading dress code, it adds: ‘We do not want to inhibit your style and flair so we are not telling anyone what to wear, except just be absolutely fabulous darlings.’
Ahead of Saturday’s ceremony there were pre-wedding drinks at the Dart Marina Hotel while the ceremony itself started at 1pm and was followed ‘by a day of food and fun’.
The nuptials ended on Sunday with a post wedding ‘hair of the dog’ party at a venue that was to be confirmed and was arranged by a local wedding planner called Rebecca Marie, who is a friend of Lucie’s.
Pictures posted on social media show Keys wearing a silver-grey suit standing opposite Lucie who is wearing a white wedding gown and holding a bouquet of white roses.
A friend of Lucie’s wrote alongside the picture: ‘Non stop love for the past few days,’ with a heart emoji.
Among other guests were Keys sister Susan and pals from Qatar based BeInsports where he now based with former footballer and fellow pundit Andy Gray.
Describing the wedding, a friend of Lucie’s said there had been ‘non stop love for the past few days’
Keys is believed to have met Lucie while living in Doha, Qatar, where he works for a sports broadcaster
The pair married in a hush hush £20,000 ceremony attended by only a few close family and friends at this clifftop venue in Devon
Keys with his ex wife Julia (right) and daughter Jemma (left) at the HMV Football Extravaganza in London in 2004
Julia (seen with Keys in 2006) has previously written about the emotional impact of her husband’s affair
Keys had previously denied the affair with Lucie, telling The Athletic in 2019: ‘I’ll mention the unmentionable for you. Did I leave my wife fighting cancer? No.
‘I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why our marriage ended the way it did, but my wife was fighting cancer for seven years before I left her and she had been in remission for seven years.
‘She and I went to London every day of her fight, prior to a ground-breaking operation that saw her in a period of recovery.
‘Julia had been in remission for seven years. I know how hard it was for her when things went wrong.
‘I wasn’t going to start engaging in a tit-for-tat, he-said, she-said, respond to everything that was said about me.
‘If people believe that I walked away with my wife fighting cancer with a friend of my daughter’s. I can’t change that now.
‘Tell a lie twice and it becomes the truth. Tell it on social media and it haunts you forever. I didn’t fall in love with a friend of my daughter’s.’
It emerged in September 2016 that Julia Keys had filed for divorce on grounds of adultery amid accusations her husband had an affair with Lucie.
The pair were understood to have been introduced by a mutual acquaintance on the expat social circuit in Qatari capital Doha, where Keys was working as a presenter for TV network BeIN Sports.
At the time, it was reported that Mrs Keys, a psychotherapist, felt her husband had ‘run out of chances’ after she had stood by him following his sacking by Sky Sports.
Keys and co-presenter Andy Gray made offensive off-air remarks about Premier League official Massey, claiming she didn’t know the offside rule.
In another studio conversation, which was filmed but not transmitted, Keys asked pundit Jamie Redknapp about a former girlfriend, saying ‘Did you smash it?’ meaning ‘did you have sex with her?’
In April 2018, Julia wrote about her husband’s affair in her book The MANScript, saying: ‘Richard’s affair didn’t just devastate my world, but the world of our children Jemma and Josh too.
‘It is only now, two years on, that he has admitted he did have an affair with Lucie, as well as acknowledging his deceit and the damage it has caused.
Keys still lives in Doha where he is the frontman for the company’s football coverage alongside former Sky Sports colleague Gray.
Lucie pictured in a photo shared on social media
Jemma told in 2018 how her mother discovered WhatsApp messages from Lucie on his phone while they were on holiday in St Ives.
‘I heard Mum shouting, ‘Your father’s been having an affair,’ ‘ Jemma told the Daily Mail. ‘My heart stopped. Then I asked, ‘With who?’ ‘
In the midst of her pain Jemma began bombarding Lucie with abusive and threatening late-night text messages which referred to her as ‘the filthiest sl**’ and a ‘Qatar w****’.
One warned, ominously: ‘I’m watching every move you make. You don’t know what’s coming.’
Jemma has since said she was in a state of ‘alcoholic blackout’ when she sent them – and would never have done it while sober.
She was dramatically arrested in a morning police raid, and says three officers wearing body armour threw her into a police van in her pyjamas.
She faced an unseemly court case in the full glare of the media and, potentially, a six-month prison sentence.
But despite being charged with harassment and appearing before magistrates, she was spared the embarrassment of a full trial when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) dropped the case.
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