BRITAIN’S first gay dads have split after 32 years together – after one took up with his daughter’s boyfriend.
Super-rich Barrie Drewitt-Barlow today reveals to The Sun on Sunday how he has fallen “head over heels” for Scott Hutchison — who is half his age and previously dated his 19-year-old daughter Saffron.
Incredibly, Saffron and Barrie’s husband Tony, 55, who he is set to divorce, have both given their blessing.
Remarkably, too, the three men live happily under one roof, in their £6million, ten-bedroom mansion in the States.
The Essex exiles live in Florida as “Dad, Daddy and step-dad” to five kids — in what they call “a very 21st-century family set-up”.
Last night Barrie and Scott, 25 — who have been secretly dating for nine months — publicly declared their love and that they want to marry.
Barrie, 50, a self-made millionaire, says: “I’ve fallen in love with Scott and he has done the same. I feel stupid at my age to have these feelings about someone other than Tony and half my age. But when you know something is right, it’s right. We have not made definite plans but I would like to marry Scott.
“I’m not having a mid-life crisis — if I was having one I’d buy myself a Porsche 911. This is the real deal. But not everyone will get it, as our living arrangements are unorthodox — I feel like I’m living in a commune, we are all still living together. Our children are still in a stable set-up, more so than many other families have. But now Dad’s got a new fella and we are one bigger happy family instead.”
Millions will recall pictures of Barrie and Tony cradling week-old twins Saffron and Aspen — born to a surrogate — in 1999 as they revealed themselves as the UK’s first gay dads AND the first same-sex couple to win the legal right to be named on a birth certificate as parents.
Now, almost exactly 20 years later, news of their split and unconventional new living arrangements will stun the world.
Barrie first chatted up Tony at a petrol station. It was “love at first sight”. They went on to have five kids, using egg donors and surrogates.
The pair, now worth £40million from their ventures including a trans-Atlantic surrogacy business and a global medical research company — went to court for the right to be on their kids’ birth certificates as dad and dad.
They also courted controversy by championing gender selection and choosing beautiful, clever donors. They became civil partners in 2006 then wed as soon as it became legal in the UK, in 2014 — and that same year launched a legal challenge to churches’ right to opt out of gay weddings.
Saffron and Aspen, who will be 20 next month, were conceived using the donor eggs of one woman, Tracie McCune, and carried in the womb of surrogate Rosalind Bellamy. Barrie is the father of one, Tony dad of the other, so actually they are half-siblings, albeit born at the same time. Aspen, though, does have an identical twin — Orlando, 16.
This is because the embryo from which Aspen was born split in two in the lab and Orlando was put on ice for four years before being placed in the womb of a Japanese surrogate called Donna.
Finally, the second set of twins, Dallas and Jasper were born nine years ago after Donna acted as surrogate again, but this time the eggs were from a Brazilian model who Barrie spotted on a catwalk and paid £35,000.
But the pressures of parenthood, being in the spotlight and Tony suffering from ill health in the past three years, following treatment for cancer in 2006, all took its toll.
Their sex life dwindled and, mostly because of Barrie’s snoring, they slept in separate rooms — before drifting from lovers into friends.
Tony’s cancer is now in remission but when he was taken to hospital in March last year with osteoradionecrosis in his jaw, a severe side-effect of radiation therapy — Scott, who has been Barrie’s PA for seven years, became “a shoulder to cry on”.
Barrie says: “Tony and I decided many years ago it was better we had separate rooms. Once this had gone on for three or four years, we slid into a platonic relationship.
“People may judge me but our relationship has lasted a lot longer than many heterosexual relationships. I love Tony more than any-one. He’s my true love. I will never not adore him. He’s the most sensitive, loving person.
“But somewhere along the way we turned from lovers into friends. Then Tony fell ill and over the past three years his health has deteriorated. I can’t even find words to tell you how hard it has been for the whole family, not least Tony.
“There were days when I wanted to end it all. I didn’t want to go on. I spent a lot of time with Scott and realised nine months ago that I had started to have feelings.
“Saffron and Scott had been split for many months and this was something totally unexpected. Saffron and Scott were always just friends — their relationship was puppy love.
“They never had a sexual relationship as she was so young. Scott had made no secret of being bisexual which was why their physical relationship never developed. It’s funny, it was Tony who first raised Scott with me.
“He said: ‘If I ended up going, Scott would be the person I’d like to see you with.’ My initial reaction was: ‘Tony, he’s half my age.’ But he kept mentioning it.
“I joked with him, ‘Is this your way of getting rid of me?’ and he replied: ‘No, this is my way of seeing you happy before anything happens to me.’
“Over the months, Scott and I developed and Tony and I decided we would move on — but amicably, as we want to be there for our children.”
Incredibly, Tony acted as mediator as they broke the news to Saffron. Barrie says: “We all sat round the table at home and I told her. Of course she was annoyed at first but Tony said: ‘This is a good idea. You can see how Scott is with Daddy, he likes him.’ There were no rows. We just talked as adults.
“Saffron sees how happy we are and she has accepted it.
“I was worried about telling Aspen and Orlando. But they were happy we are going to remain in the family home. I will be in one side of the house, Tony another. Nothing will be different, except Scott is now in my room.
“We will not rush into divorce. I will marry Scott one day but it’s a step at a time.”
And mealtimes are family affairs. Barrie says: “We have a personal chef and all sit together and have family time.
“Our kids are happy. Aspen and Saffron do their thing — she’s in Paris one week, New York the next and Aspen just got back from holiday on a yacht off Cuba.
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“Orlando summed it up a few weeks ago when we went out for dinner. He introduced us to a friend he brought, saying: “This is my dad Tony, my daddy Barrie and this is my stepdad Scott” — and we all burst out laughing. We have nothing to hide. There will be people that have a problem with it, but I couldn’t care less.”
Last night Scott said: “Saffron is one of the best friends I could have asked for. She and I are so close. She understands everything, but we were never more than friends.
“We didn’t have a sexual relationship. Saffron is just so supportive. It’s not how I expected things to turn out — but I don’t want to be with anyone else.”
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