I've been through hell, says Tiger's ex

If you thought Tiger Woods had experienced a difficult nine months, try stepping into the designer shoes of his ex-wife Elin Nordegren, who has broken her long and dignified silence on the scandal that claimed her marriage to inform the world: "I have gone through hell."

Ms Nordegren, whose divorce was finalised on Monday, said she had experienced "shock, anger and ultimately grief" over the revelation of her former husband's serial infidelity, adding that the stress of the situation gave her insomnia and weight loss, and caused her hair to fall out.

"The word 'betrayal' isn't strong enough," she said.

"I've been through hell. It's hard to think you have this life and then all of a sudden - was it a lie? I have been through the stages of disbelief and shock, to anger and ultimately grief over the loss of the family I so badly wanted for my children."

In the first public statement she has made since late November, when Woods crashed his SUV into a fire hydrant outside the Florida home where they lived with their two children, Ms Nordegren told People magazine she'd had no idea of her husband's extra curricular activities before the scandal first broke.

"I'm so embarrassed that I never suspected. For the last three-and-a-half years, when all this was going on, I was home a lot more with pregnancies, then the children and school. I felt stupid as more things were revealed. How could I not have known anything? I felt embarrassed for having been so deceived. I felt betrayed by many people around me."

The former Mrs Woods vehemently denied reports that she had pursued her errant husband from the house, perhaps brandishing a golf club, after getting wind of his relationship with Rachel Uchitel, a nightclub hostess who was the first in a string of mistresses to be publicly identified.

"There was never any violence inside or outside our home," she said. "The speculation that I would have used a golf club to hit him is just truly ridiculous. Tiger left the house that night, and after a while when he didn't return, I got worried and decided to look for him. That's when I found him in the car. I did everything I could to get him out of the locked car. To think anything else is absolutely wrong."

Ms Nordegren's interview with People magazine came as a surprise, since she is thought to have signed a confidentiality agreement as a condition of receiving $100m in a divorce settlement from Woods, rather than the $20m she was entitled to under the terms of their 2004 pre-nuptial agreement.

It seems likely, however, that it was the only time she will be permitted to speak publicly about the breakdown of their marriage. Though Ms Nordegren didn't discuss the financial terms of their separation, she did tell the magazine that this will be her first and last ever public interview on the subject.

She hopes to forgive Woods one day, she added, but "forgiveness takes time". In the meantime, she will devote herself to bringing up their children, a three-year-old daughter, Sam, and a 19-month-old son, Charlie.

"Money can't buy happiness or put my family back together," she added.

- INDEPENDENT