Nicola Sturgeon says her sexuality is not 'binary' as she addresses gay affair rumours

In an extract from her new memoir published in The Times, the former first minister said the “wild” story was untrue, but admitted it did get under her skin.

There have long been claims on social media that Ms Sturgeon is having a secret relationship with a woman.

“There were slightly different versions of the story, but the consistent theme seemed to be that I was having a torrid lesbian affair with the woman who was at that time the French ambassador to the UK, and who would later become the French Foreign Minister, Catherine Colonna,” Ms Sturgeon wrote.

Variants of the story featured a “violent encounter” between the pair involving an iron in Edinburgh’s Balmoral Hotel, as well as the use of a house bought from Andy Murray’s mum, Judy.

“Normally, I wouldn’t have known nor cared about wild stories from the darker recesses of social media, and, if this one had stayed there, it would have been easy to ignore,” Ms Sturgeon wrote. “But by late 2019 it was being openly talked about.”

She added: “It reached a head in February 2020, when the social media site Guido Fawkes tweeted to the effect that a salacious story about my private life was only still secret because I had a superinjunction in place to stop it being reported. I was furious. It was a blatant lie. Not only was there no superinjunction in place, but such a legal remedy isn’t even available in Scots law.”

Ms Sturgeon said she and Ms Colonna laughed about the rumour when they met after lockdown. However, she also argued the saga raised “serious issues”.

She wrote: “How do fake stories like this take root in social media? Did some Russian bot factory concoct a made-up story? Who knows? Then, of course, there is the blatant homophobia at the heart of the ‘story’.

“For many of those peddling it, ‘lesbian’ and ‘gay’ are meant as insults. However, while the fact I was being lied about got under my skin, the nature of the insult itself was water off a duck’s back.

“Long-term relationships with men have accounted for more than 30 years of my life, but I have never considered sexuality, my own included, to be binary. Moreover, sexual relationships should be private matters.”

Ms Sturgeon’s new memoir, Frankly, is published on Thursday next week. Elsewhere in the book, she said the day she was arrested as part of the police investigation into the SNP’s finances - June 11, 2023 - was the worst day of her life.

“Being arrested and questioned by the police is an experience I’m not sure I will ever get over,” she wrote. “When I eventually left the police station, late that afternoon, I was in a bad state mentally.”

Ms Sturgeon was cleared as a suspect in the investigation in March this year. She wrote that 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”.

Her estranged husband, Peter Murrell, has appeared in court charged with embezzlement.

The former first minister also opens up in the memoir about her miscarriage in early 2011. She wrote about being “consumed by guilt” because of her conflicted feelings about the pregnancy, and her initial worry about the impact on her political role.

“We later resolved to try again, but I knew then that we had lost our one chance,” Ms Sturgeon wrote. “I was desolate and heartbroken for myself, but more so for Peter.

“I was consumed by guilt all over again, convinced that it was all my fault, that the stress of worrying about the impact on the election had caused the miscarriage; that I was being punished for not wanting the baby badly enough, for having even wished it away. These feelings have never quite left me.”

Ms Sturgeon said she believed the baby would have been a girl, called Isla.

“I don’t want to give the impression that I am full of regret at not having children,” she said. “I’m not. If I could turn the clock back and make it so, I would choose to have a child, but only if I could still do the other things I’ve been able to do too. I don’t feel that my life is worth less.

“But I do deeply regret not getting the chance to be Isla’s mum. It might not make sense, but she feels real to me. And I know that I will mourn her for the rest of my life.”