NEWS OF THE WORLD, LONDON
Sunday Jan 23, 2000

I PLOTTED TO KILL WIFE-BEATER JIM

TV Boss confesses taking out contract on comedian's life
EXCLUSIVE By LEE HARPIN, SHOWBIZ EDITOR

     The TV boss who married Jim Davidson's ex-wife Alison Holloway has sensationally admitted taking out a contract on the top comic's life.
     Burt Kearns met hitmen after being enraged by Davidson’s account of his 18-month marriage to the sexy newsgirl. The American executive claimed the 45-year-old Generation Game host had tried to make excuses for beating up Alison by claiming she was equally to blame. Kearns stormed: "I hired some guys to break his ****ing knees." He added: "I was going to kill him."
     Davidson married Alison—his third wife—in 1987, three weeks after meeting her.
   Boxers
     Bust-ups followed and she soon had two black eyes. Alison, 38, split from the comic after 18 months and married Kearns in 1995.
     Davidson wrote about the marriage in his autobiography, The Full Monty. He bragged: "We’re like a couple of boxers. On the first occasion, I poked her in the eye by accident. I actually went for the mouth. Thank heaven I missed, I’d have fallen in. I just took a playful punch. Unfortunately I caught her completely wrong. The second time I gave her a shiner. I threw a bunch of keys which whacked her in the eye. Just for a giggle she kept blackening it up to make it look worse."
     Angry Kearns has now hit back in his own book TabloidBaby.
     He says: "Davidson didn’t tell the story of kicking Alison down the stairs the day they returned from their honeymoon or her shame when she appeared on air with pancake makeup covering the bruises. He was blaming the victim. After weeks mulling over how to punish him I decided an old-fashioned Irish kneecapping by bullet or sledgehammer seemed most appropriate."
     Kearns says he actually hired hitmen and admits he wanted Davidson dead. But he was eventually persuaded to back down by two pals with expert knowledge of contract killings.
   Blasted
     They told him: "If you break his knees, everybody will feel sorry for him. People like that meet their own fates."
     Bristol-born Alison lives with Kearns in Los Angeles with their three-year-old son. She in turn has blasted Davidson, saying: "Claiming I hit him is like OJ Simpson accusing his wife of abuse."

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