Friday 27 May 2022 10:10 PM 'Telling our son his daddy was in jail was the worst thing I've had to do': ... trends now

How do you tell your child that the father he adores is in prison? It sounds as though Lilly Becker — who is still, technically, Mrs Boris Becker — could have done with an instruction manual on the subject.

Her hands fly into the air as she admits she was reeling so much when she realised she would have to break the news to their son that she was thinking only in expletives.

‘My instinct was to say it as it is: “Your father is in jail. He has f***ed up”,’ admits Lilly, 45. ‘But you can’t say that to a 12-year-old child, can you? Not when you are the mother, the Tiger Mother whose job on this earth is to protect that child.’

In the event, she sought help. She asked a family friend, who happens to be a head teacher, to help her tell Amadeus that his beloved father — tennis legend Boris — had been sentenced to two years in prison over charges relating to his bankruptcy, and was at that very moment behind bars, his career and reputation in tatters.

Since Amadeus did not even know that his dad had been facing a jury at Southwark Crown Court last month — accused of hiding assets to avoid paying debts — this was quite a bombshell.

‘No one expected Boris to be jailed, so why would I want my child even to know about the trial?’ she asks. ‘When the sentence came, though, everyone was in shock, but I was the one who had to tell Amadeus.

‘I called my friend, who had taught in a nursery. She knew Amadeus. She also knows how to explain it in a way that wasn’t too brutal for him.

‘We told him in his play room, where he feels safe. It was one of the worst things I’ve ever had to do. I will never forget looking into his blue eyes — as blue as Boris’s — and watching them just go from left to right and back again. He was flabbergasted. He just couldn’t get a grip on it.

‘The sentencing had been on a Friday, and he’d seen his father on the Thursday, so he was saying “but . . . I just saw him”. You know that thing when someone dies, and you can’t believe it because they were just there? It was like that.

‘I said: “Do you want to cry?” And he said, really quickly: “No.” Then I said: “Do you want to be left alone?” and he said “Yes”, and we went downstairs. He came down 20 minutes later.

‘I know he’d been Googling. Damn Google! But I can’t stop him, can I? He needs answers. He deserves answers.’

The questions have come since and she has tried to answer them, but, as she points out repeatedly: ‘How do you?’

‘You try to downplay it. I told Amadeus his father had been “naughty”, but he’s a bit old for that sort of language. Then I told him Boris wasn’t a criminal.’

Which isn’t true, I say.

‘I know, but he’s not a criminal. He hasn’t murdered anyone. He hasn’t robbed a bank. I tried to keep it kind of light, sort of “he didn’t pay his bills, Amadeus. Let this be a lesson, you must pay your bills”, but . . .’ She slams the table. ‘But it’s not a thing you can be flippant about, is it?

‘Amadeus is doing better now. He’s asking questions — what will Papa be eating? Will he be able to watch films?

‘So I just have to answer as best I can, but no, it is not fair that I am in this position. It is not fair that Amadeus is in this position.’

Is Lilly remotely interested in what her estranged husband is eating in prison? Well, no. ‘I don’t give two s**ts what he’s eating. It won’t be steamed sea bass from Scott’s, will it?’ she says, referencing the Mayfair restaurant beloved of the rich and famous.

‘But I can’t say that to my son, can I? This is what I mean. Boris has done this, and I am the one having to clean up the mess. It’s always the women who have to clean up the mess.’

I have interviewed the second Mrs Becker before. The 45-year-old Dutch model and TV presenter is a sparky soul — ‘someone who does everything at 100 per cent,’ she admits herself.

Two years ago she was livid when her estranged husband — they separated in 2018, ‘and he hates me because I was the one who left him’ — took Amadeus on holiday with his latest girlfriend, Lilian de Carvalho Monteiro.

Pictures emerged of Becker’s new love putting sun cream on the child.

Lilly believed that this broke all the unwritten rules about how ‘new’ girlfriends should behave with their partner’s children.

The breaking-of-the-rules we are talking about today, though, is in a different league.

Boris was found guilty of hiding £2.5 million of assets and loans, to avoid paying debts. He was found guilty of four charges under the Insolvency Act.

Because he is not a British citizen, he could be booted out of the country on his release, his fall from grace complete.

Although he started his sentence in the Category B Wandsworth Prison, only a few miles from Lilly’s Wimbledon home, he has been moved to the Category C HMP Huntercombe in Oxfordshire. And Lilly says it feels she has been left holding the baby, so to speak, in this maelstrom.

It’s the ‘final straw’ she says. ‘If you’d known how much I’ve had to cope with over the past four years. I say that I’ve got superpowers now. Bring it on. Throw the kitchen sink at me, too.

‘But this time, it really isn’t fair on Amadeus. He’s had years of having to cope with our split, which was nasty, and he had finally got his head around the fact that Mama and Papa weren’t together. Now this.’

How is she coping? She manages a laugh, of sorts. ‘I am cleaning like a maniac,’ she says. ‘You should see how much bleach I get through. I take it out on the

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