Bassey: 'I will never wed again'

Shirley Bassey will never marry again, because men are intimidated by her success.

The singer, who has been divorced twice, insists she is better off as a single woman.

She says: "I've always been the breadwinner and many men don't like that, even in today's changed world. They can become jealous of the love one shares with an audience.

"It's hard for a man to live with a successful woman. Very few men are generous enough to accept success in their women.

"Some men are afraid to be with a successful woman because we're so terribly strong. We know what we want and we're not weak and fragile."

But Bassey says heartache had benefited her music.

She adds: "I have been burned now and then but, in a sense, it's had some benefits. I couldn't sing the way I do, and feel a song the way I do, if I hadn't been through both the good and the bad times. The truth is, I've been happily married to my profession for years. I decided a while ago there would

be no wedding bells for me."

Bassey married first husband Kenneth Hume, a gay film director, in 1962 and divorced him three years later. She divorced second husband Sergio Novak after nine years in 1977.