Nicola Sturgeon has revealed the bombshell moment she knew her decades-long friendship with Alex Salmond was over for good – and why his ‘truly disgraceful’ behaviour meant she could never forgive him.
The raw admission, revealed in the latest extract from her soon-to-be published memoir, Frankly, centres around how Salmond reacted to multiple allegations of sexual misconduct levelled against him in 2018.
Two years later the ex-SNP leader and Alba Party founder was cleared of 13 sexual offence charges, including attempted rape, though he conceded during the trial he could have been a ‘better man’.
Salmond died of a heart attack in North Macedonia last October, aged 69 – but before his death he maintained there had been a ‘conspiracy’ between his accusers to bring him down.
‘What he never did was show any contrition,’ lamented Sturgeon, who added that she felt ‘sick’ over the allegations.
In an extract published by The Sunday Times, the former First Minister added that ‘ruthless’ Salmond would have done anything to extricate himself from blame – even if it meant the downfall of his party.
‘There was also never the merest hint of concern about the damage he did to the party he previously led.
‘Indeed, it felt to me that he would have rather destroyed the SNP than see it succeed without him.
Nicola Sturgeon has revealed the bombshell moment she knew her decades-long friendship with Alex Salmond was over for good in a new extract from her forthcoming memoir, Frankly
Sturgeon took over from Salmond as SNP leader and first minister in 2014 and remained in that role until her resignation in March 2023
‘What he never did was show any contrition,’ lamented Sturgeon, who added that she felt ‘sick’ over allegations of sexual misconduct levelled at Salmond in 2018
‘He was prepared to traumatise, time and again, the women at the centre of it all.’
Sturgeon said the notion his accusers had collaborated with one another to accuse him of misconduct was ‘a fabrication, the invention of a man who wasn’t prepared to reflect honestly on his own conduct’.
She added: ‘That he tried to distort and weaponise genuine expressions of shock, in some cases trauma, was truly disgraceful, and it strikes at the heart of why I find it so hard to forgive him.’
At the point of realising his ‘thirst for revenge’ was greater than the bond between them, Sturgeon said she knew their friendship was over for good and she went through a ‘grieving process’.
She wrote: ‘For a time after we stopped speaking I would have conversations with him in my head about politics and the issues of the day.
‘I had occasional, vivid dreams in which we were still on good terms. I would wake up from these feeling utterly bereft.’
And even now after Salmond’s passing, Sturgeon admitted his impact on her continues and she will ‘never quite escape the shadow he casts, even in death’.
Sturgeon took over from Salmond as SNP leader and first minister in 2014 and remained in that role until her resignation in March 2023.
They were once close, but at the point of realising Salmond’s ‘thirst for revenge’ was greater than the bond between them, Sturgeon said she knew their friendship was over
The ex-SNP leader and Alba Party founder was cleared of 13 sexual offence charges, including attempted rape, though he conceded during the trial he could have been a ‘better man’
Even now after Salmond’s passing, Sturgeon admitted his impact on her continues and she will ‘never quite escape the shadow he casts, even in death’
The former SNP leader said she was ‘desolate and heartbroken’ after losing her baby in 2010 (Pictured at a memorial service for the Ibrox disaster just days after her miscarriage)
The former politician said: ‘Being the subject of a high-profile criminal investigation for almost two years, especially having committed no crime, was like a form of mental torture.’ (Police outside Ms Sturgeon’s home following her arrest)
Ms Sturgeon’s book will be launched on August 14 at the Edinburgh International Book Festival
The extract is the second to be published from Sturgeon’s memoir.
In the first, she candidly revealed that she does not consider her sexuality to be ‘binary’, though she refused to give specific details and said that ‘sexual relationships should be private’.
She also said the police probe into the SNP’s finances caused her ‘mental torture’ and her arrest was the worst day of her life.
The former First Minister described her ‘despair’ when police raided her home and said she felt like she had ‘fallen into the plot of a dystopian novel’.
While she said the arrest of her husband Peter Murrell made it feel ‘like a nightmare with no end’, she also admitted it gave her a ‘brief glimmer of hope’ that she could be cleared.
She also wrote of how she felt ‘overwhelmed by guilt’ when she fell pregnant ahead of an election campaign, and then felt she was ‘being punished for not wanting the baby badly enough’ when she suffered a miscarriage.
Ms Sturgeon’s book will be launched on August 14 at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, while the 55-year-old will also give an ‘in-depth’ interview to ITV News at Ten presenter Julie Etchingham just days before it comes out.
