Alexa, queue I’d do anything for love
Matt Hancock has again insisted he did not break covid rules when he was caught out snogging his aide, while also claiming he kind of did – because he “fell in love.”
In a lengthy interview for the podcast Diary of a CEO, Hancock dished all on the moment he was captured by CCTV with Gina Coladangelo. Images of the embrace were leaked to the Sun, and for the foreseeable future, the UK had them burned into their eyeballs.
“I resigned because I broke the social distance guidelines then,” Hancock said. “They weren’t actually rules. They weren’t the law. But that’s not the point. The point is they were the guidelines that I’d been proposing.”
He explained that the kiss happened once the rules were lifted, but guidance (guidance he made) was still in place.
“So I’m not trying to claim that I hold no bitterness about this because I broke the rules, I fess up, I broke the guidance, and there were only two people responsible for this.”
Hancock described Coladangelo as a close personal family friend who he’d known “for more than half of my life”, while also stating he broke his own rules “because I fell in love with somebody.”
Following Hancock’s resignation in June, he moved in with his new boo and left his wife and three children. Coladangelo, who was hired to “help with public communications”, also left her husband and three children.
“We spent a lot of time together, ironically, trying to get me to be able to communicate in a more emotionally intelligent way,” Hancock said.
“And we fell in love. And that’s something that was completely outside of my control. And of course, I regret the pain that that’s caused and the very, very, very public nature. Anybody who’s been through this knows how difficult it is, how painful it is doing that in public is incredibly painful, but I fell in love with someone,” he continued.
Ultimately, Hancock’s decision to resign came not from continued media pressure or the public’s outcry, but because of stories from “some people I really respect.” Said people reportedly contacted Hancock to share their stories of “dying relatives” and other things they were not able to do because they followed his rules.
On his marriage, Hancock said: “Anybody knows how difficult it is ending a relationship, and we have six children. It’s tough. But Gina and I love each other very deeply.”
Related links:
- Boris Johnson confirms all remaining covid restrictions will be scrapped on Thursday
- Iran returns 820,000 vaccine doses as sixth covid wave hits because they were US-made
- Next covid variant could be worse than Omicron, warns Chris Whitty
