At the height of his fame Tony Blackburn was a housewives’ favourite who apparently had women falling at his feet.
But now, it seems, at least two of the 500 women he once claimed to have bedded are not happy.
In his latest boastings, the veteran DJ claimed he and his ex-wife, actress Tessa Wyatt, were both having affairs with their married neighbours behind each other’s backs.
Revealing the bizarre ‘love square’ to Gyles Brandreth on the Rosebud podcast he said of Tessa: ‘She didn’t know I was having an affair with the next-door neighbour, and then she was having an affair with her (the neighbour’s) husband.’
Blackburn, 82, has described the liaisons as ‘our own Home Counties version of Celebrity Wife Swap’.
He went on to say Tessa, who he had since divorced, only discovered what he had been up to when she read his first autobiography in 1985 adding: ‘Isn’t it awful.’
In the wake of Blackburn’s claims Tessa, 77, hit back denying she cheated on him saying: ‘That’s not true. I’ve never had any affairs. He may say that, but it’s just not true.’
Now his former neighbour Margot Webb, while admitting the affair, has blasted Blackburn over his ‘endless bragging’.
Margot Webb told The Mail on Sunday she was fed up with Tony Blackburn’s ‘endless bragging’ about their short-lived relationship
Seventies DJ, Tony Blackburn previously boasted about of bedding 500 women
Margot Webb and DJ Blackburn who had an affair in the 1970s. He claimed Mrs Webb’s husband was having an affair with his wife Tessa Wyatt, which she denied
An aerial view showing Tony Blackburn’s former home and the Webb’s property
Margot, who is in her late 70’s, told the Daily Mail: ‘He’s so boastful. He’s talking about something that happened nearly 50 years ago.
‘Everyone knows what he got up to so why does he keep going on about it? It’s horrible.’
Describing the relationship Margot, who said she had been a ‘shy and naive convent girl’ who had felt ‘flattered’ by Blackburn’s attentions, added: ‘I haven’t had that many lovers, but Tony was the worst one I ever had. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. He didn’t have a clue.
‘To be honest with you, sleeping with him was always the part of our date I looked forward to least.’
Margot and composer husband Roger were living in a seven bedroomed house in the leafy Berkshire village of Cookham Dean when the Blackburns moved into a property which virtually backed onto their home in the early 1970’s.
Actress Margot met Roger in the 1960’s while working on long-running BBC variety show International Cabaret and they married in 1968.
They had a daughter Julia who was born in the early 1970’s and Margot later went on to work in film production.
When they moved to Berkshire, Roger’s career was thriving. He composed music for screen and stage as well as writing theme tunes to popular TV series including George and Mildred and The Gentle Touch.
Roger, a self-taught pianist, also served as musical director for a host of stars’ live performances and recordings including Shirley Bassey, Rex Harrison and Johnny Mathis.
Blackburn married Tessa in 1972 and the couple had a son Simon, now 52, the following year.
Blackburn and Tessa Wyatt in 1972. They were married for five years before divorcing in 1977
A ‘pool party’ hosted by Margot Webb at her and her piano player husband’s home
Pictured right, Tony Blackburn, playing croquet at one of Ms Webb’s pool parties
In his second autobiography called Poptastic! My Life in Radio, Blackburn told how the couple decided to move out of London after driving out for dinner at the home of fellow DJ Terry Wogan and his wife Helen near Maidenhead.
He wrote: ‘We talked about just how blissful life in the stockbroker belt might be. For the price of our home in St John’s Wood, we could own a big place in the country.
‘As soon as we set eyes on Hollycroft, an ivy-clad, 100-year-old period house in Cookham Dean, Berkshire, we knew it was ours.
‘Set in one-and-a-half acres of magnificent, tree-lined grounds, with a gravel drive and gorgeous rose bushes, Hollycroft had four bedrooms, three bathrooms and plenty of period features.
‘Later, we added a swimming pool and a small studio, where I would work on jingles for my radio show.’
Margot and Roger were a sociable couple who held weekend parties for their show business friends including the Wogans, Ernie Wise and his wife Doreen, actors Herbert Lom and Beryl Reid and entertainer Tessie O’Shea.
Even Hollywood superstar Bette Davis, who had made a record with Roger, went round for dinner.
In his book, Blackburn described how weekend party guests were ‘virtually paralytic the whole time’ and that on ‘hot and wild nights’ he couldn’t keep his eyes off nude goings-on in the pool.
But Margot dismissed his claims as ‘a load of nonsense’ and insisted the family-friendly gatherings consisted of games of croquet on the lawn, children splashing around in the pool and playing with the couple’s three pet donkeys, Dinky, Winky and Snowy.
She told the Daily Mail: ‘When his book came out, Doreen Wise rang me up and joked: ‘Oooh, Ernie and I didn’t know all this naughtiness was going on. Why didn’t you invite us when everyone was taking their clothes off?’.
‘We had a lot of fun but there was no wife-swapping or anything he was suggesting.
‘He just invented that to make it all sound more juicy. ‘There were no wild parties with naked swimming – it was more playing croquet and donkey rides.’
It was in the book, published in 2007, that Blackburn first revealed his affair with Margot.
He wrote: ‘While all eyes were firmly trained on these poolside activities, I found myself drifting ever closer into the arms of Margo (sic) in a more secluded part of the garden. Before long, we were deeply embedded in an affair.
Blackburn and his ex-wife Tessa with their son Simon petting a goat
Blackburn with his son Simon and Margot and her daughter Julia, who later passed away in a car accident aged 34
‘I was a young husband and a father, yet I was already living a double life.
‘Then I’d fool around with Margo and feel overcome with a sense of relief, as if the act of infidelity would somehow make my doubts and insecurities go away.’
Blackburn told how as his relationship with Tessa ‘drifted into an emotional no-man’s-land’ he ‘took a room’ at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington so he and Margot could continue their ‘dangerous liaison without interruption’.
Margot told how she was left devastated by Blackburn’s ‘hurtful and humiliating’ bragging.
She said neither Blackburn nor his publisher had contacted her to inform her about his ‘revelations’ and that she was being named in the book.
The book was published as she was still reeling from twin tragedies.
Roger died suddenly from a brain tumour at the age of 68 in 2002 while daughter Julia, who worked for Sky TV, was killed in a car accident in California shortly after she moved to America in 2005. She was aged just 34.
Margot said: ‘It’s hurtful for him to speak about Roger all the time.
‘Roger was a shy and gentle man, not a wild party guy. He would hate for anyone to think of him in those terms, which are just not true.
‘All I have left of my husband are memories – and I don’t want them tarnished by the nonsense in the book, which is humiliating and hurtful.
‘I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. I just want to set the record straight.
‘Why is he continually bringing up something that happened when we were all young? Little romantic episodes happen all the time. Why is it necessary to go on like this about people who are no longer with us – it’s hurtful.’
Margot told how her relationship began after Blackburn asked her husband if he could take her to the cinema.
Neither thought his intentions were anything other than honourable.
She said: ‘It didn’t dawn on me that he had anything else in mind. Roger was working all the time and Tessa was away a lot. I just thought it was something to do to fill the time.
‘The next time we went for a meal. It was a few weeks before anything developed then what happened between us didn’t last long – it might have been six months or nine months.
‘Tessa and Roger certainly weren’t seeing each other at the same time.’
Margot said that during their affair Blackburn became ‘jealous and insecure’.
And she described him as being ‘very vain’ adding: ‘He would spend an hour in front of the mirror in the morning, putting mascara on his bald patch.
‘He wouldn’t go out in the rain. Tony can be very pleasant, but his insecurities make him a nightmare.’
She added: ‘I wasn’t in love with him. I’ve only ever been in love with one person and that was Roger. Thankfully Roger and I stayed together.’
It was the beginning of the end for Blackburn’s marriage however.
Margot, a former actress, who told The Mail on Sunday that she was fed up with Tony Blackburn’s ‘endless bragging’ about their short-lived relationship
Roger Webb with his wife Margot Webb on holiday in Capri, Italy
Blackburn with his former wife Ms Wyatt after they announced their engagement
Tessa landed a part in ITV comedy hit Robin’s Nest and began a relationship with co-star Richard O’Sullivan with whom she had a son Jamie, 45.
Blackburn’s five-year marriage to Tessa ended in divorce in 1977.
Blackburn told Brandreth: ‘Well, she left me for Richard O’Sullivan. We got married probably too young.
‘And it was one of those things. It was both of us. I was quite jealous as well. I was very possessive, I think. Over-possessive, which I was in those days.
‘I could never understand why the hell she married me in the first place, because as you say, she was very beautiful.’
Tessa is now married to property developer Bill Harkness, with whom she has two children.
In June 1992 Blackburn went on to marry theatrical agent Debbie Thomson, 65, with whom he had a daughter Victoria, 30.