Woods’ ex-wife breaks silence
Tiger Woods’ ex-wife Elin Nordegren today broke her silence on their marriage and said she had “been through hell” since learning of his affairs.
In an interview with People magazine in the US, Nordegren denied ever hitting the golf star and said she and Woods tried for months to reconcile the relationship.
In the end, she said a marriage “without trust or love” was not good for anyone.
In November Woods drove his car into a tree outside the family home after what appeared to be a domestic row, setting off revelations that he had been cheating on his wife in multiple affairs.
She said she knew nothing about the affairs saying she was “blindsided” and “embarrassed” by them.
“I never suspected, not a one,” she said in the exclusive interview. “For the last three and a half years, when all this was going on, I was at home a lot more with pregnancies, then the children and my school.”
Nordegren told the magazine that she never hit Woods, calling speculation that she struck him with a golf club “truly ridiculous".
While she has withheld some details, Nordegren, aged 30, said she was speaking out now because she wanted to set the record straight.
But she told People she had no intention of discussing the subject in public again, saying she hoped her family could get the privacy they needed to start their new lives.
She is on the cover of this week’s issue of the magazine, just two days after the couple officially divorced.
Nordegren said: "There was never any violence inside or outside our home,'' she said. "The speculation that I would have used a golf club to hit him is just truly ridiculous.''
Nordegren said Woods left the house the night of the car crash and when he did not return after a while, she got worried and went to look for him. She said that’s when she found him in the car.
“I did everything I could to get him out of the locked car,” she said. “To think anything else is absolutely wrong.”
The magazine said the interview was conducted over four visits lasting a total of 19 hours at the rented Florida home where she now lives with their two children.
“I’ve been through hell,” she said. “It’s hard to think you have this life, and then all of a sudden – was it a lie? You’re struggling because it wasn’t real. But I survived. It was hard, but it didn’t kill me.”
In an interview on US TV today, People reporter Sandra Sobieraj Westfall said Nordegren and her team approached the magazine.
Westfall said Nordegren wanted people to know three things: she is not violent and never hit Woods; she had no idea this was going on; and it was a real marriage for her.
Nordegren and Woods were married on October 5, 2004, in Barbados and have a three-year-old daughter, Sam, and an 18-month-old son, Charlie.
In the interview, Nordegren would not disclose the amount of the divorce settlement but did say “money can’t buy happiness or put my family back together.”
Woods, who is playing in golf tournament in New Jersey this week, has not yet commented on the couple’s divorce.
Nordegren said she would eventually come to forgive Woods but that she is still working on it.
“Forgiveness takes time,” she said. “It is the last step of the grieving process.”
In the meantime, the Swedish-born Nordegren said she is excited to start the next chapter of her life and intends to stay in the United States with her children.
She also said she has “not watched one minute of golf.”
