THE marriage of the controversial businessman Geoffrey Edelsten and his reality TV show wife was apparently not so bedazzling earlier this year when the pair wrestled during an argument, a court has heard. Giving evidence at a civil trial over action he is taking in the Victorian Supreme Court against an American woman he met on the internet, Mr Edelsten testified that he and his wife Brynne had separated for about four weeks in March after an argument they had turned physical.
''Brynne had taken my mobile phone and when I asked for it back she refused, we had a wrestle and she went out on the balcony for a cigarette and called her lawyer, who told her to call police,'' Mr Edelsten told the court yesterday.
Asked what his marriage was like at the time, Mr Edelsten replied: ''strained.''
The court heard that while he and his wife were separated he had previously met a New Jersey woman, Stacy da Silva, on the website sugardaddyforme.com during a business trip to the United States.
But details of the 69-year-old disgraced doctor's dealings with Ms da Silva have been suppressed and remain the subject of a court injunction order he is seeking so they remain confidential.
He told Justice David Beach: ''I'm embarrassed about personal matters being retained in front of anyone else … I regret that this is my only course of remedy.''
The court heard Mr Edelsten told his 29-year-old wife about his dealings with Ms da Silva once they had ''well and truly made up'', admitting she was not happy about his involvement with another woman. Brynne Edelsten is expected to give evidence about a phone call the court heard she made to Ms da Silva, ordering her to leave her husband alone.
''She told her what she thought of her, and that she was a tramp, and to stop contacting her husband,'' Dr Edelsten said, adding that he and his wife were in San Diego when the call was made.
He stated during his testimony that he had been the victim of extortion during the 1980s for which the person responsible had been jailed and fined. The court also heard he woke every day at 2.30am and started work at 3am, because he had practiced medicine for 25 years and was often delivering babies at all hours of the night, so working odd hours had become a habit.
He also told the judge that there was a lot of information available about him and his marriage on the internet as his wife was the subject of a reality television show called Brynne: My Bedazzled Life.
The trial continues.
