INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

Max Clifford, Disgraced Publicist, Dies At 74 After Collapsing in Prison

By Louise Bonquin
Published on: 03:14 PST, Dec 10, 2017

Max Clifford, the discredited publicist, passed away on Dec. 10 at a hospital. He was brought to the medical facility after collapsing in his cell in HM Prison Littlehey in Cambridgeshire, England.

It was said that Max Clifford lost consciousness in prison twice. The first incident happened on Thursday, Dec. 7, while he was cleaning his own space in the jail. He collapsed again the next day and was finally brought to the hospital.

After three days, The Sun reported that the former publicist died due to heart attack. He was 74.

In any case, the British controversial figure was also a convicted sex offender and this explained why he was in prison. Clifford was found guilty of sexual assaults on four girls, with ages ranging from 15 to 19. Apparently, he was serving his eight-year prison sentence when he was struck with the serious medical emergency.

Apart from his health issues, the ex-PR mogul was beset with financial woes that drove him to declare bankruptcy earlier this year. As mentioned in Daily Mail, Max Clifford owed about £7.5 million – £4.5 million to unsecured creditors and £3 million to secured creditors.

Prior to losing his fortune, Max Clifford was earning about £2.5 million a year. He was at the height of his career and was able to afford at least two extravagant homes in Surrey. One of his mansions there was valued at a whopping price of £3.5 million.

He also owned a property in an exclusive golf estate in Spain and it was said to worth around £1.5million. In addition, he spent money on cars, buying a Bentley worth £200,000 every two years.

After being included in the Operation Yewtree investigation, Max Clifford’s career slowly caved-in. By the time he was finally sentenced to jail in May 2014, for sexual abuse carried out between 1977 and 1985, he lost almost everything.

It was said that Max was planning to appeal against all his convictions in early next year as new evidence are available, but obviously, this may not happen anymore.

Finally, as per Max Clifford’s obituary on BBC News, the dishonored publicist was born Maxwell Frank Clifford on April 6, 1943, in Kingston Upon Thames in Surrey. His family was not rich and as a son of an electrician who was also an alcoholic and gambler, he and his family struggled financially.

He withdrew from school at the age of 15 and it was his brother, Bernard Clifford, who found him a job at Eagle comic where he worked as an editorial assistant. Max went on to work as a journalist at the South London Press and after several years, he was hired in the press relation department of EMI, a popular record company.

One of Max Clifford’s most notable achievements was probably helping The Beatles with its career launch. He was also accounted for helping out Frank Sinatra, Muhammad Ali and the Chelsea Football Club.

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