Nick Broomfield on liars that he’s known and loved, and lovers that he’s known and lied to.

I got hoodwinked into writing this article by my dear friend Charles Finch, who always brings such laughter it is impossible to refuse. Charles asked me to write about lying, saying the three most famous lies are: “The cheque’s in the post”, “You’ve got creative control” and “I won’t come in your mouth”. I hasten to add that I have not been involved in telling any of these three lies (“Is this a lie?” you’re thinking!). But in my years as a documentarian I have encountered many fibs, lies and half-truths.

Charles asked me whether I can tell when one of my subjects is lying. I have noticed that when people are really frightened, they can give off an odour of fear. Lying is not quite like that. Occasionally, a flush can come to the cheeks or, I’ve noticed, an uncomfortable itch can develop around the neck, a twitching of the feet, a shifting in the seat, an averting of the eyes, an unnecessary laugh or cough. Or, in the case of Margaret Thatcher, when I asked her in the Holocaust Museum whether her son Mark was in fact involved in illicit arms deals, she simply walked out of the room, swinging her handbag more vigorously than ever. But, as she has been quoted as saying, “You don’t tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive.”

Heidi Fleiss, the well-known madam to the stars who must’ve told more lies than most over the years, had the wonderful girlish attribute of turning bright red whenever she told a real whopper. I asked her if she was still bonking her old pimp Ivan Nagy in the afternoon and she denied this, but when I produced the gatehouse log-book to prove it, she turned bright red and said “You’ve got it all wrong, Nick”—before running of out the room!

I have to say I have a fondness for bad liars like Heidi, whose vulnerability shines through and who are actually incapable of telling a real whopper. It’s the good liars that worry me: the Tony Blairs and Alastair Campbells, the used-car salesmen of the political world, who could sell us weapons of mass destruction without even cracking a smile. When I challenged Campbell for lying to the public about a war that no one wanted, he slithered his way out of it without so much as batting an eyelid and then attacked me about my latest film. These are the premier division of world-class liars, and now they’re even trying to get us to buy their biographies, seeking to redefine their place in history.

Probably the most tragic lying I have encountered was that of Aileen Wuornos, who murdered seven men and who I got to know quite well over the years. Aileen believed that she had killed in self-defence, which was part of her psychosis. But after sitting on death row for 13 years she was so desperate to die that she changed her defence to speed up the process. I assured her that with Jed Bush trying to pick up more votes for governor of Florida, she would be executed anyway. But she went to her death maintaining she had killed in cold blood when those closest to her knew she believed otherwise.

So, on a lighter note, my dear friend Charles Finch in his list of questions also asked what’s the biggest whopper I’ve ever told a girl. I’d like to say I’ve never told a girl a big whopper, but that would be the biggest whopper of all. Unfortunately, there have been so many… That I’d gone to Ukraine to do some undercover work when I was in fact spending the weekend in Kentish Town with someone else. Or, to a very sexy animal-lover, that I had broken my ankle while saving an old lady’s kitten from a tree when in fact I’d fallen off my skateboard on Hampstead Heath. Other more common lies are: “Honestly, I’m telling the truth”, “You’ll never believe what happened” and “I promise I’ll try harder.” Lying is complicated. As Helen Rowland, the famous American humourist said, “Telling lies is a fault in a boy, an art in a lover, an accomplishment in a bachelor and second nature to a married man.” But I think perhaps the worst whopper of all is to tell someone you love them when you don’t, and maybe for a variety of reasons most of us have been guilty of this.

Sometimes, however, lies are absolutely required, and you wish Tony was your best buddy, to help you out. Like when you heartily congratulate a friend on being pregnant and she stares at you blankly, or the shock of seeing a dear and close friend after a disastrous facelift—you need to lie, and you need to lie well! As Graham Green so brilliantly said, “In human relationships, kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.”

Charles’s last request to me was: “Give me one question to make a person squirm and one to make them spill their guts.” Well, Charles, I have racked my brains and could not come up with anything that isn’t unprintably vulgar. Maybe you or the readers would have some suggestions you could send in? That would make for extremely amusing reading for your next issue. In the meantime I will leave you with this thought from Winston Churchill: “There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true”!

Read more about Nick at www.nickbroomfield.com

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