David Gest, the US television personality and ex-husband of actress Liza Minnelli, was found dead in a five-star London hotel on Tuesday in unexplained circumstances, police and a friend said.
File photo of producer David Gest and his wife, singer/actress Liza
Minnelli at the House of Blues on Jul 25, 2002 in West Hollywood,
California. (Photo by Vince Bucci/Getty Images)
LONDON: David Gest, the US television personality and
ex-husband of actress Liza Minnelli, was found dead in a five-star
London hotel on Tuesday (Apr 12) in unexplained circumstances, police
and a friend said.
Gest's body was found at the Four Seasons Hotel in the Canary Wharf
district of the British capital. The 62-year-old had been due to tour
Britain in an autobiographical musical show, "David Gest Is Not Dead But
Alive With Soul", later this year."It is with great sadness that I can confirm that David Gest has died today," his friend Imad Handi said in a statement released to media. "David was truly larger than life. He was not just a huge talent and a dear friend but a showbiz icon."
A spokesman for Scotland Yard said police officers were called to the hotel just after 10.00am "to reports of an unexplained death of a man in his 60s. London Ambulance Service were called to the scene. Life was pronounced extinct at the hotel."
Gest was married to Minnelli from 2002-2007 but they had a bitter divorce, with him accusing her of beating him while she was drunk.
He was a close friend of Michael Jackson, producing a documentary about the late singer in 2011, and had appeared on a string of reality television shows in Britain.
- AFP/de
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