Max Clifford amoral, sleezy and disgusting

 Sarah Symonds describes how she escaped Max Clifford.  Fortunately she was not introduced to  Cliffords best friend Steve Less the owner of Secrets chain of all nude  strip clubs.

Max Clifford by Sarah  Symonds

I will never forget the first appointment I had with Max Clifford, the esteemed Publicist of Simon Cowell, and many other huge names. It was April 2008, and as soon as I sat down in the leather chair in his office, he blurted out, “I was an adulterer all through my marriage. I’ve had tons of affairs.” He then opened the top left hand drawer of his desk and pulled out a picture of a woman, whom he proudly told me was his wife. The woman in the picture was shockingly naked and in the throes of having sex with a black man. I was very confused and disturbed by what I saw, especially as I'd read his wife had died of cancer a few years earlier, but that was nothing to what was to come.




He went on to explain, very proudly, that the photo I was looking at of his now-deceased wife having sex with a stranger, was taken years ago, and was something he had personally arranged. He'd set that situation up, and many more, and, he had taken the photo himself. He said he often arranged for men to have sex with his wife while they were away on holiday, and told me how he would sit in the closet in the hotel suite, positioned perfectly to take such photos as that one. He boasted how he would arrange for the men to approach her while she was on her own, and pay them to do so. And although he would have made an excuse for an afternoon playing golf etc, really he would be in situ, in their hotel room, waiting to watch. He also told me that his wife had never known he had set these men up for her, compassionately adding, “she went to her grave thinking she had attracted them herself,” never thinking her husband knew anything of her extra marital activity, let alone that he was the one instigating it and paying for it.

By now my head was spinning. I didn’t know whether to feel flattered that he was confiding this information so soon after meeting me, or completely grossed out at how he disgusting he was. But, I needed him. I was there to see if he would represent the company I was visiting him on behalf of, and also to ask if he thought my book had any chance in the UK market. I had already done well with it in the States, and been on the Oprah Show etc.

He went on to tell me more disgusting pieces of information about his married life, and then he moved on to his then current girlfriend Jo, now his second wife. He said that whilst she was “a lovely woman” she didn’t like the same things sexually that he did, and so he had to take care of his cravings elsewhere. I asked him how he never ‘got caught’, and he replied, “You will never read anything negative about me, the press need me too much. I have them in the palm of my hand” And he pointed to various framed front-page stories he had brokered for numerous people. He also told me all about Rebecca Loos and her story with David Beckham, and how it was completely true etc. I was blown away by what I was hearing, and disappointed that the family man, caring image he put across in the media, was all just a sham.

With our meeting drawing to a close, he finally told me his fees for his PR services, a whopping 15k per month (boasting that Simon Cowell paid him 250k a year to "manipulate the press for him.") I was flabbergasted. I knew I couldn’t pay that, and I doubted the Canadian company I was working for would, but, that was the info I had gone there for. Then, Max did something else. He propositioned me there and then in his office. He told me how we could have some fun together and that “we could look after each other.” He also went on to tell me that if the company would agree to his fees, then he would help me - and promote my book - on the side, for free. I realize now, in hindsight, he was grooming me.

He then gave me his mobile number, and I gave him mine, and as I was about to leave, he told me to meet him in the office toilets just past the main reception area, so that “he could have a feel.” I was far too nervous to do so. I felt all eyes were on me as I walked past his harem of women receptionists and secretaries (interesting how there were NO men on reflection). As I left the building I got a text, “Where were you, I went to the toilets but you weren’t there.” We arranged for me to go back to his office for a follow up meeting two days later. That next time, I would not escape the toilet invitation so easily.