Three-year affair with Quinn ended in acrimony

MARRIED magazine publisher Kimberly Quinn had a three-year-long affair with former British Home Secretary David Blunkett.

It was a relationship that Mr Blunkett hoped would bring him the happiness to match the success of his celebrated political career.

But the relationship with Ms Quinn, the 44-year old publisher of The Spectator magazine, ended in acrimony and a bitter dispute.

The 57-year-old politician claims he is the father of her two-year-old son and the boy’s unborn brother.

The heavily-pregnant Ms Quinn, who had been known as Fortier, recently began using her married name.

Her husband is the Irish-born 60-year-old multi-millionaire Condé Nast publisher Stephen Quinn.

Ms Quinn met Mr Blunkett at a dinner party in August 2001, two months after she married Mr Quinn at a Westminster registry office.

The pair are thought to have been instantly attracted to each other, sharing a frank sense of humour.

It is claimed she courted Mr Blunkett in a blunt manner, telling him she had “always wondered what it was like to sleep with a blind man.”

Ms Quinn was known to other members of the British cabinet and accustomed to life among leading figures in politics.

Former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook turned to her to give an interview when his marriage broke up.

Her ease in the company of decision-makers led her first husband, the US banker Michael Fortier, to warn she “collected interesting, powerful men.”

As her relationship with Mr Blunkett developed, Ms Quinn became a regular visitor to his official London home and picturesque cottage in the Peak District.

Ms Quinn comes from Los Angeles but has been working in publishing in Britain since the 1980s.

She joined Condé Nast magazine publishers in the mid-1990s, when her now husband Stephen was publishing director for the company’s GQ title. She took up the Spectator job in 1996.

She ended the relationship with Mr Blunkett this summer.