Nicola Sturgeon opens up on arrest, divorce and ‘secret rendezvous’

Nicola Sturgeon has said the end of her marriage was down to more than her husband’s alleged crimes.

She also alluded to a potential “secret rendezvous” which may have taken place lately.

Scotland’s former first minister has opened up about her personal life, discussing the breakdown of her marriage, her miscarriage and her arrest just months after quitting as SNP leader.

Speaking on STV’s The Assembly, Sturgeon said she had felt her miscarriage happened because she did not want her baby enough, and suggested she was not over the ordeal.

She also described being arrested by Police Scotland in 2023 as “horrible”, telling the programme she went into a “shutdown state” and that she still tries to block it from her memory.

The 55-year-old spoke about her late predecessor, Alex Salmond, on the show and her hope that he would have said the breakdown in their relationship “wasn’t your fault”.

Sturgeon, who has just stepped down as an MSP ahead of the Holyrood election next month, faced questions from an audience of autistic, neurodivergent and learning disabled people on the programme.

Asked how it felt being separated from Peter Murrell, who was the SNP’s chief executive for more than two decades, Sturgeon said: “There’s been a lot of public coverage of my husband being accused of crime and stuff, and so that is what everybody thinks it will be.

“I’m not saying that’s not a factor, because when you’re faced with something like that, it completely blows your world.

“But I think, if I’m being honest, I think it was probably more than that.

“I’ve been this very career-focused politician all my life, and now I’m going into a new phase of life where I want to find out a bit more about who I am as a person, not just as a politician. You change.”

Asked if she had had any “secret rendezvous lately”, Ms Sturgeon said: “I hope in this whole recording that I’m going to do a politician answer, which is, maybe.

“This is one of these moments where you’re going to have to judge from my body language and read between the lines.”

Sturgeon announced in January 2025 that she and Murrell had decided to end their marriage after being separated for some time.

Murrell has been charged with embezzling £460,000 of SNP funds and is due in court for a further appearance next month.

In June 2023, Sturgeon was arrested by police in Operation Branchform, which looked into the SNP’s finances, but was released without charge.

“It was a horrible thing,” she said, reflecting on her arrest. “It was not good. I would not recommend it.

“I think I sort of put myself into some kind of shutdown state, and since then I’ve just tried to blank it out of my head.”

Asked if that was due to the “trauma” of the experience, she said: “Yeah, probably.”

Sturgeon, Scotland’s longest-serving first minister, also opened up about her experience of miscarriage when she was 40.

She began to tear up as one member of The Assembly mentioned the name of Sturgeon’s miscarried baby, Isla Margaret.

“The mention of her name just got me,” she said, holding back tears. “I think at the time, I didn’t want people to say anything to me, because I didn’t really know how I felt about it.

“The thing I felt most was guilt, because at first, I hadn’t been sure that I wanted to have the baby, and I was really worried that it would get in the way of my career and everything.

“Then, when I lost her, I don’t know if she was a girl. I always decided, I always thought she was a girl.

“When I lost the baby, I just had this overwhelming feeling that it was my fault because I hadn’t wanted her enough.”

Sturgeon added that “it was the kind of thing you thought you got over and then suddenly, sitting on television, somebody mentions her name, and you realise deep down inside you kind of haven’t”.

Turning to her political career, she named Mr Salmond, her former mentor, as the person in politics she had learned the most from.

The pair formed one of the most successful political partnerships in UK history, winning every election campaign led by one or both of them north of the border since 2007.

But after allegations of harassment were made against Salmond by two women during his time as first minister, the relationship between the two began to deteriorate before completely severing.

Salmond was cleared of a number of charges of sexual misconduct, including attempted rape, following a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh in 2020.

He went on to become the leader of the now-defunct Alba Party, which became a frequent critic of the SNP and his former protege.

Salmond died suddenly of a heart attack in October in North Macedonia at the age of 69.

Sturgeon said she felt “really sad” when he died, saying she had a “real sense of grief” which was made worse because she could not attend his funeral.

She went on: “The thing I wished, which I think I also knew would never, ever happen, is that he would say to me, ‘yeah, it wasn’t your fault what happened?’

“Even if he wasn’t going to admit that it was his fault, that he would say, ‘Look, I know it wasn’t you that did this to me’, and ‘I’m sorry for suggesting that it was’.

“I think I would have loved at some point for him to say that, but I knew he wasn’t the type of person who would ever do that.”

The Assembly continues at 10pm on Friday on ITV1, ITVX, STV and STV Player.