Boris Johnson’s dad Stanley ‘broke his mum’s nose in domestic violence incident’, new book reveals
BORIS Johnson’s dad Stanley broke the PM’s mother’s nose, according to a bombshell book.
Charlotte Wahl ended up in hospital after she “flailed” at her then husband and he flailed back.
Boris was ten at the time. Author Tom Bower quotes Charlotte in The Gambler as saying: “He made me feel like I deserved it. I want the truth to be told.”
Family and friends of Stanley insisted it was a one-off episode between the couple in the 1970s.
But Bower claims the relationship between the couple was violent and their marriage unhappy in his book on Boris, called The Gambler, serialised in the Mail on Sunday.
At the time of the nose incident, Charlotte was suffering Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
Charlotte, a painter who now has Parkinson’s, said the hospital doctors “spoke to Stanley about his abuse at me”.
She added: “He had hit me. He broke my nose.”
The children were told their mum had been belted in the face by a swinging car door — but Boris, then aged just ten, knew the truth because she discussed the marriage with him despite his age.
Charlotte’s parents visited her daily at St John and St Elizabeth Hospital in St John’s Wood, North London.
They confronted former Tory MEP Stanley about her allegation but he denied hitting her.
Stanley — who starred in I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here in 2017 — was said to have deeply regretted the moment which put his wife in hospital. He denied being violent on any other occasion.
Bower said the family secret, and his parents’ troubled relationship, had an impact on Boris as a man.
He writes: “Boris agonised over his mother’s fate . . . unwilling to confide in others about his father’s violence, he became a loner.
“To mask the misery and hurt he demanded attention . . . but Boris’s bravado masked deep unhappiness.”
The book, based on interviews with the PM’s family and friends, delves deeply into his complex character.
It paints a picture of a youngster battling hurt over his parents’ divorce and a wild childhood in which he found befriending other men hard.
He confided in women instead in poems and letters and threatened suicide to try to prevent break-ups.
The book also reveals his long-held ambition to become PM and his feuds with fellow Old Etonians David Cameron and George Osborne.
Stanley, now 80, met Charlotte at Oxford University where she was studying English. She went to the US to be with him when he got a job there.
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When she returned to Oxford she was pregnant with Rachel and Boris was “in the pram outside the exam hall”.
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After divorcing Stanley, Charlotte went on to marry US academic Nick Wahl who died in 1996.
Stanley wed Jennifer Kidd and they have two children, Julia and Max. He declined to comment on the book.
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