Adrian Delia confirms marital problems

Nationalist Party leader Adrian Delia has acknowledged that his relationship with wife Nickie Vella de Fremeaux is passing through a “difficult period”.

The announcement was made in a short statement released by the PN this morning, in which Delia asked for his family’s privacy to be respected.

Blogger Manuel Delia reported in the early hours of Wednesday that Vella de Fremeaux had sent her husband a legal letter asking for a separation.

Rumours that the couple’s relationship had soured were making the rounds ever since Vella de Fremeaux gave a no-holds barred interview to Lovin Malta, in which she spoke about the pressure Delia’s public role had put on the family.

In his statement this morning, Adrian Delia said he would be doing his best to protect his family’s wellbeing.

“My wife Nickie and I are passing through a difficult period. I will keep doing my utmost to protect the wellbeing of our family and our children and to this end I humbly ask for our family's privacy to be respected, at this delicate moment more than ever,” the statement read.

Adrian Delia had come from nowhere to clinch the PN leadership in September 2017

Delia was elected PN leader in September last year and has had a difficult ride at the top after having to face internal dissent. The lawyer had never been involved in politics before taking the plunge and luring PN members with his call for “a new way”.

Delia and Vella de Fremeaux have been married for 17 years and have five children.

Last August, in a Facebook post, Vella de Fremeaux had called out ‘friends’ who excluded her son from parties because of politics.

Vella de Fremeaux did not accompany her husband during the PN’s Independence Day celebrations and was only present on stage for the mass meeting on 20 September.

The mass meeting was Vella de Fremeaux’s last public appearance with her husband.

Two days later she gave the Lovin Malta interview, in which she spoke of regret at her husband’s decision to enter politics.