Bristol Evening Post, February 1, 2000

Husband of former HTV presenter says:

THE husband of former HTV presenter Alison Holloway has denied hiring hitmen to kill comic Jim Davidson.

American TV executive Burt Kearns says in his book Tabloid Baby that he was so enraged by the Generation Game host's account of his short-lived marriage that he considered taking revenge.

He said: "After weeks mulling over how to punish him I decided an old- fashioned Irish kneecapping by bullet or sledgehammer seemed most appropriate."

A Sunday newspaper picked up the story and said that Kearns went as far as hiring hitmen but was persuaded to drop the plan by two friends.

Mr Kearns learned of the story while on a book promotion tour.

He says in an email to the Evening Post: "While honoured to be immortalised in the tabloid love triangle pantheon, I have to plead not guilty.

"My attorneys and spiritual advisors want me to put it on record, and I'd like my friends in Bristol to know, that I never hired hitmen to murder anyone."

He said the Sunday newspaper article was only "technically" accurate and was a condensed version of the story which appears in chapter 35 of Tabloid Baby.

Mr Kearns was angered by Davidson's version of alleged violence during his marriage to Alison in the 1980s which appears in his autobiography The Full Monty.

In the book he implies that 38-year-old Alison was equally responsible for the violence.

Alison split from the comic after only 18 months of marriage and went on to marry Kearns in 1995.

The comic had said he took a "playful punch" at his wife and on another occasion gave her a black eye when he threw a bunch of keys.

But in his own book Kearns alleged Davidson kicked Alison down the stairs the day they returned from honeymoon and wrote of her shame when she appeared on TV with pancake make-up covering the bruises.

Alison now lives in Los Angeles with Mr Kearns and their three-year-old son.

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