Franka Wright helped Rick get back together with his band after bust-up

But he rewarded he with both drug abuse and impregnating a groupie

After the pair divorced Rick went on to marry the girl and father a son

Franka hope by speaking out she will finally find peace

Of all the stories about adulterous rock stars, it must rank as one of the worst. When Franka Wright heard her husband, Pink Floyd keyboard player Rick, had returned to Athens, she rushed to see him on board his boat – only to find him entertaining a young blonde.

‘She was wearing his shirt,’ Franka recalls. ‘I asked her how long their affair had been going on for and she stared at me, then slowly unbuttoned the shirt to show me her slightly rounded stomach. She was clearly pregnant. I was devastated.’

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The blow would have been heartbreaking for any wife, but it was all the more crushing given Franka, who by then had been with Rick for more than a decade, was recovering from her fourth miscarriage.

In the past Franka had forgiven Rick’s affairs. It was, she says, one of the hazards of being married to a member of the world’s greatest rock band. But fathering another woman’s baby was the final straw

The year was 1992 and Pink Floyd were at the height of their international fame after a phenomenally successful two-year world tour.

In the past Franka had forgiven Rick’s affairs. It was, she says, one of the hazards of being married to a member of the world’s greatest rock band. But fathering another woman’s baby was the final straw.

Before the betrayal, and subsequent acrimonious divorce, their marriage had been an astonishing ride through the best years of a group at the pinnacle of its powers.

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This week, Pink Floyd’s contribution to rock music will be honoured by the sale of ten commemorative Royal Mail stamps marking their 50th anniversary. That the Beatles are the only other band to have been celebrated in this way is indicative of their phenomenal impact.

The band has sold more than 250 million albums, and one in 12 people is said to own a copy of their 1973 hit Dark Side Of The Moon.

Their latest accolade, however, has stirred bittersweet memories for Franka and compelled her to speak out. In her first interview, she tells her remarkable account of life on the road with one of the most successful British bands of all time.

From the spectacular performances in every major city, to the dark side of rock and roll - the groupies, drugs and the torrid rows - she had a ringside seat.

‘I want to draw a line under a time in my life which, despite all the excitement, was frustrating and difficult,’ she says.

‘During the ten years I was with Rick, I had four miscarriages and almost died during one of them. Rick cheated on me constantly and although we loved each other, I had to leave after I found him in bed with the pregnant groupie,' Franka said

rICK’S letter of wishes – signed three years before their divorce – stated Franka, left, should be paid a pension ‘whether or not she is my wife at the date of my death’.

‘During the ten years I was with Rick, I had four miscarriages and almost died during one of them. Rick cheated on me constantly and although we loved each other, I had to leave after I found him in bed with the pregnant groupie.’

It was scant reward, she says, for having worked so hard to reunite Rick with the band as famous for their bitter divisions as their ground-breaking music. Torn apart by drug-fuelled rows and mired in mutual loathing, they had split and vowed never to reunite by the time Franka met Rick in 1981.

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And so, she insists, it would have remained, without her intervention. Using her negotiating skills, she brokered peace between Rick, guitarist David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason. When Pink Floyd embarked on their historic world tour in 1987, she says Gilmour told her: ‘Thank you for making this happen.’

Franka says Gilmour’s words at a rehearsal were the only acknowledgement that she had saved the band from bitterness and rancour.

‘I made peace between Rick and David when it seemed that they were over for good,’ she says. ‘It’s because of me that they even began talking to each other again. And yet I never received public recognition for what I did.’

It is this desire to be recognised which has prompted her to speak out about her decade-long marriage to Pink Floyd’s quietest member. And she hopes that by revealing her life with the band, she can finally make peace with the past.

We are sitting in the shade of her little garden, crammed with potted flowers, on the island of Kefalonia, a popular tourist destination in her native Greece. The rambling house, with a hotch-potch of rooms that she rents out to seasonal workers, is desperately in need of renovation. It is her childhood home and her only source of income.

Franka, flamboyantly dressed in a floaty beach kaftan, complains that she was left virtually penniless after her divorce from Wright in 1994, having received just £150,000 in her settlement. Wright claimed at the time that he was worth only £200,000, yet left a £24 million fortune when he died from cancer in 2008.

This week, Pink Floyd’s contribution to rock music will be honoured by the sale of ten commemorative Royal Mail stamps marking their 50th anniversary

He did, however, write a letter of wishes – which is not legally binding – to the executors of his will, in which he asked that Franka enjoy a lifelong pension from his estate. This, she says, has never been honoured.

Indeed, her circumstances are a world away from the lifestyle she once enjoyed with Wright. ‘People think I walked away with millions,’ she says. ‘They don’t believe that I have no money and that my life is a big struggle. I had to borrow €1,000 to pay the doctors when I had severe bronchitis last year.’

It is one of the reasons she is writing a warts-and-all book about life with the band. She admits to ‘crying every day’ thinking of all she has lost. Poignantly, her former husband and his band continue to dominate her life, despite Wright subjecting her to an ordeal she describes as ‘a bed of thorns that cut into my heart every day and almost destroyed me as a woman’.

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She runs a worldwide Pink Floyd fan club and declares openly that she still loves Wright, who she refers to as ‘my darling’, even though he indulged in every conceivable rock cliché throughout their relationship, from taking industrial quantities of drugs to sleeping with endless groupies. She has never remarried.

She first met Rick in 1981, after he had been forced from the band by Roger Waters, Pink Floyd’s co-founder, for not contributing enough to The Wall album.

He was, however, hired as a session musician for the album tour and was the only one to make any money – the others had invested in the loss-making venture. The band’s 1983 album The Final Cut is the only one without Rick.

He was by then living in self-imposed exile in Rhodes, where he spent his days drinking in the Qupi bar in Lindos, a popular celebrity hangout owned by Franka and her then husband.

‘I was not interested in him but I could feel his blue eyes on me all the time,’ she recalls. After a car accident put her in hospital for two months, she received pink roses every day. ‘I didn’t know who sent them,’ she adds. ‘He only told me after I returned to the bar. He eventually broke up my marriage by telling my already suspicious husband that he was madly in love with me.’

They became a couple in 1982, dividing their time between Wright’s homes in New York, Nice, London, Greece and his boat, before marrying on Rhodes in 1984.

‘Rick didn’t talk too much about why he left the band, except to say he was fed up with Waters’s ego,’ Franka says. ‘When we bumped into David in Lindos, both men studiously ignored each other.

With Rick (far left) back in the band (pictured), Franka embarked on a decade of hedonism. The Venice concert in July 1989, performed before 200,000 people from a floating barge 200 yards from the Piazza San Marco, remains a favourite memory

‘Rick told me there was too much bad blood and I should butt out. I kept telling them their fans wanted them back together and engineered more social meetings. Over time, they began talking about music and Nick Mason returned.’

With Rick back in the band, Franka embarked on a decade of hedonism. The Venice concert in July 1989, performed before 200,000 people from a floating barge 200 yards from the Piazza San Marco, remains a favourite memory.

‘It was so magical,’ recalls Franka. ‘The concerts were like works of art. Intense visual experiences with pyrotechnics, lighting and lasers.’

Despite his wealth, Rick told her he had very little money. ‘He was really mean,’ she says. ‘I had to hide shopping bags to stop him blowing up about my spending. When we met, he had only one pair of jeans, his personal hygiene was questionable, and his house in Knightsbridge was shambolic. He needed to be cared for and that’s what I did.

‘I took his daughter Gala to Carnaby Street and wanted to buy her a £50 shirt on the credit card Rick gave me, but she said it would make him upset if we spent so much.’

Franka blames Rick’s drug-taking and drinking for his death at the relatively young age of 65. ‘I begged him not to take drugs when we were in Greece and was furious when I saw him doing cocaine in the bathroom in our Athens flat,’ she says.

‘After every concert the table in Rick’s rooms would be laden with drugs and alcohol – and he was not the only one. You didn’t have to ask for anything. I took a line once, to keep up with him, but I didn’t like it.’

She says Wright regularly had sex with groupies or backing singers, which is why she flew all over the world to be by his side – even while pregnant. ‘If I wasn’t there when he wanted me, then he would find another woman to put in his bed.’

She paid a heavy price, she says, for this devotion. ‘I believe that’s why I miscarried three babies and had an ectopic pregnancy. Rick never visited me in the hospital.’ The end finally came after she caught Rick in bed with the blonde.

‘After every concert the table in Rick’s (far right) rooms would be laden with drugs and alcohol – and he was not the only one. You didn’t have to ask for anything. I took a line once, to keep up with him, but I didn’t like it'

‘I could not handle the fact that another woman was having his child, after I had lost so many babies,’ she says. ‘I had to leave or it would have destroyed me.’ It was not the first time that she had caught him in a tryst with another woman – Franka recalls having flown from Athens to New York, only to find he had been having an affair with one of the band’s backing singers.

‘We had a blazing row and I immediately flew back to Greece,’ she says. Another time she met him in the Caribbean and found a beautiful Dutch model on his boat. After another fight, she flew home.

However, she believes Wright never wanted a divorce: ‘He tried to stop me leaving him many times, begging me to stay and saying he was truly sorry for what he had done to me, but my heart was broken.’

In the bitter divorce battle, Rick’s lawyers argued he was worth £200,000 and she was urged to accept a £150,000 payout – more than half of which was eaten up by legal fees. Worse still, she says, the rest of the band and their friends turned their backs on her. ‘They cut me out because I mentioned drugs to my lawyers,’ she claims.

Wright went on to marry Millie, the woman Franka says she had seen on the boat, and they had a son, Ben. Years later, Rick contacted Franka and offered to help her make a recording of Greek music.

‘When Millie found out, she rang to warn me off, saying, ‘‘I’m Mrs Rick Wright”. “Join the club,” I told her.’ Rick never contacted her again, and she alleges she was told not to attend the funeral by his secretary. ‘It was so hurtful,’ Franka says. ‘I never got to say goodbye and I don’t even know where he is buried.’

Further pain followed when she received documents from his estate, including the letter of wishes, signed in 1991, three years before their divorce, saying she should be paid a pension ‘whether or not she is my wife at the date of my death’.

Franka, who says she has never received a penny, adds: ‘At least it means he must still have loved me.’

The lack of contact with his surviving bandmates still hurts. ‘Over the past seven years I’ve tried to contact David, who I was very fond of, but he has never replied,’ she says. ‘It’s as if I never existed.

‘I don’t want a handout, but I would love to see David when he plays in Italy on Thursday.’

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It is a heartfelt plea to have one last taste of Pink Floyd – the only drug, it seems, she grew to love.