Stephen Hawking's ex-wife Jane slams The Theory of Everything errors

STEPHEN Hawking’s first wife has slammed The Theory of Everything over its “galling” errors, adding “don’t ever believe what you see in films”.

The Sun reports that Jane Hawking, who was married to the scientist for 30 years, said the film starring Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones contained a “fair amount of fanciful fiction”.

The 2014 film was based on her memoir Travelling to Infinity and chronicled her life with Hawking from when they first met in 1962.

But she complained how some biographical details were changed or cut out to keep the running time down.

She told how she pleaded with the producers to fix the inaccuracies but was ignored.

The 74-year-old said: “I knew if there were mistakes in the film that they were going to be immortalised, which they have been.

“I found that very irritating and I didn’t want it to happen. Don’t ever believe what you see in films.”

Mrs Hawking, who had three children with the physicist, explained how the biopic retold the story of how they first met.

This took place in their home town of St Albans, not Cambridge University, as is the case in the movie.

She went on to explain how much of their life was spent flying around the world for scientific conferences — but this was cut out of the film entirely.

Mrs Hawking was also disappointed her parents, who helped her as she struggled to cope with her husband’s motor neurone disease, were virtually overlooked.

She was speaking at the Henley Literary Festival yesterday to promote her second novel Cry to Dream Again.

She said Hawking was happy with the film and was less concerned about the inaccuracies, but would have liked there to be more science.

Mrs Hawking also spoke movingly about her ex-husband’s death, saying: “Stephen was given two years to live in 1963 and he fought that wretched disease until this year.

“It was as if a giant had been felled and taken, and we thought he was immortal. I think that goes for all of us.”

Hawking left Jane for his carer in 1990, before the couple’s divorce in 1995.

This article originally appeared in The Sun and is republished here with permission

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