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Open in new tab Jude Law’s French ex-lover today reveals how the Hollywood star walked into her life – by stepping out in front of her car on the school run.
The actor waved Rachel Bourlier down, chatted her up through the window and then cheekily asked the stunned mum for her phone number in true Alfie style.
It was the beginning of a year-long romance as he swept the 43-year-old beauty off her feet – only to drive her to heartbreak.
Now Rachel is picking up the pieces after Jude moved on to business psychologist Phillipa Coan.
Single mum Rachel says: “I fell deeply in love with him. There was a big intensity between us.
“It was as though we were in another world together. I was sure he was a wonderful man. I thought, people don’t know him like do. He was so warm and nice.
“He came to my London house in Hampstead all the time, but my son didn’t want anyone to know about us, for people at his school to say ‘ Your mum is with Jude Law ’, because his reputation isn’t very good.
“Now I know why.”
Today Rachel tells how she helped the 43-year-old notorious womaniser cope with the discovery that he had fathered a child with a young singer.
And she reveals how he comforted her through the grief of losing a cousin in the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris.
They met around September 2014. Rachel says: “I was in my car going to pick up my son from school, and suddenly I saw him cross the road in front of me. So I stopped.
“I opened the window because he smiled at me and came to talk to me.
“We spoke for about 10 minutes and suddenly I saw the time and said, ‘I’m late, I have to go’.
“I wanted to move and he said, ‘Please give me your number’.
“It was crazy. But I gave him my number and he texted me seconds later saying, ‘This is my number, Jude’.”
The couple met up and their friendship quickly turned to romance.
Rachel says: “I thought it was destiny. He did too. He always said to me, ‘it is destiny we met and are together’.”
Then, in January, IS gunmen murdered 12 people at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in an attack that shocked the world.
Two days later four hostages were killed at a kosher supermarket in a Paris suburb – among the dead was Rachel’s 22-year-old cousin Yohan Cohen who courageously died when he tried to wrestle a weapon from a gunman who was going to shoot a three-year-old child.
“I was in Venice when I heard about the attacks and Yohan’s death,” she says. “Jude got me through this terrible time.
“He told me, ‘You have to be with your family, then come back straight back to London and I will take care of everything’. I will always remember what he did for me. When I arrived in London he was there for me.
“He held me all day and was talking about life’s beautiful things, and trying to make me laugh, explaining the history of Britain because, being French, I don’t know very much about English history.
“He explained all about the English Kings, people don’t know all this is a part of him.
“He can be a very good teacher. I didn’t know about Bonfire Night and he explained everything to me. He loved the fact I’m French.
“He told me he loved me. I was his passion. Because of how he got me through that time I can never blame him. He can be with every girl, but I will remember this.”
“We had a very big, deep connection and I thought at this age of our lives this was incredible.”
TV presenter Rachel reveals how she also helped Jude when he discovered a former love, 24-year-old singer Catherine Harding, was pregnant with his baby.
“He now has five kids with three different women and with the last one, the woman told him she was pregnant while we were together,” says Rachel. “I loved and supported him through all that.”
Rachel says friends’ had warned her about the actor’s reputation as a ladies’ man, but the passion was so strong between them she was determined to give things a go.
The pair spent hours at home chatting, listening to music together – and she recalls him returning home after a flight abroad and theatrically diving to his knees in front of her.
Rachel says: “He came straight from the airport. I opened the door and he knelt down on the floor like a prince, and said, ‘I am so sorry’ and took me in his arms.
“I said, ‘Sorry for what?’ He said, ‘Just being away, I missed you so much, you have taught me passion’. When a man tells you that you taught him to be passionate, it means a lot. And I felt I could trust him.”
The handsome Sherlock Holmes star was previously married to 50-year-old actress Sadie Frost, with whom he has three children.
Then he had a child with American model Samantha Burke following a brief fling in 2008.
In March, singer Catherine gave birth to Jude’s fifth child, a daughter, following a brief relationship in 2014.
Jude also had a high-profile on-off romance with actress Sienna Miller.
The couple met on the set of Alfie in 2003 shortly after his separation from Sadie, with Jude proposing on Christmas Day 2004.
But their romance was scuppered when it was revealed he had had an affair with his former children’s nanny Daisy Wright in 2005 while filming in the US.
It was all over for Rachel and Jude when she read in the papers that he was seeing Phillipa, 29.
Devastated Rachel says she ended the relationship despite the star’s efforts to change her mind. She says: “He tried hard to get me to stay with him. He said, ‘I want to explain to you, let me see you’. But I just said, ‘I don’t want any more from you. You did enough’.
“He tried and tried. I started crying on the phone and told him how awful he was. He said, ‘I can’t bear to hear you crying, I am so sorry’.
“I said, ‘No I am crying because you are an illusion and now I don’t want to listen to you any more’.
“I am not in love with him any more. I still remember an illusion . Now I realise that my life as a woman is behind me. I gave the best part of me during all the time I was with Jude.”
This month Jude was pictured hand-in-hand with new love Phillipa as the pair enjoyed a romantic break in Venice.
The couple were seen strolling beside the city’s Grand Canal during one of the actor’s break from filming American series The Young Pope alongside Diane Keaton.
The pictures break Rachel’s heart, but she says: “Now I just want to be alone with my kids.
“I feel I don’t want anybody in my life. It is over for me because I was so in love and trusted him.
“I don’t want to be arrogant, but I know one thing – what I gave him he will never find again.
“The eyes I was looking into showed me that. I was the only one really.”