Life before Georgia Toffolo, the messy relationship history of millionaire James Watt

We all know and loathe James Watt as the former CEO of BrewDog and the hubby of Georgia Toffolo, but his relationship history goes further back than that to include an ex-wife, some workplace flings, and an ex who sought to take him down.

Long before they became yet another uber-rich celebrity couple, James Watt and Georgia Toffolo were living equally as controversial lives on their lonesome. We’ve already established Georgia’s awful taste in men, ranging from a literal criminal to too many posh boys to count, but now it’s time to do James Watt’s relationship history.

Johanna Basford

The first major stop in James Watt’s relationship history is his marriage to illustrator Johanna Basford, whom he met in 2006. Johanna, a Guinness World Record holder and prolific artist, married the former CEO of BrewDog in 2013. They later had two daughters, Margaret and Janet, before divorcing just a few years ago.

“I have something to share with you all. Last year, I became a single mum and like a dollop of playdough, my family moulded itself into a different sort of shape,” Johanna wrote in a Facebook post in 2020.

“It’s been a tricky few months, but the girls are flourishing (despite the somewhat bedraggled state of their ‘home learning’ tutor!) – they are happy and loved and we’re finding our feet with co-parenting.”

He had a “brief’ fling with a ‘team member’

Amid troubling accusations about making female employees uncomfortable, not to be confused with separate accusations about creating a “culture of fear”, James denied wrongdoing while apologising for any hurt caused. He also revealed a “brief, amicable relationship” with a team member.

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The fling reportedly happened in the US during a difficult period of his marriage, something he called a mistake that “should never have happened.”

Details regarding the brief fling were not made public.

Emili Ziem

In 2020, James Watt’s relationship history got even messier when he began chatting with model Emili Ziem over Instagram. Just a year later, people in James’ life began receiving defamatory messages about him from a woman under the name Laura Keller, later revealed to be Emili.

“She was, in fact, a key part of a network involved in a campaign to do as much damage to me and my business as possible, spreading false and defamatory information to destroy me personally and damage our business,” he wrote in a LinkedIn post.

She had conned him out of £100k under the guise of tracking down those spreading lies about him, with a judge later awarding James £600k in damages.

Georgia Toffolo

We’ve now come full circle, with the final stop in James Watt’s relationship history being former Made in Chelsea star Georgia Toffolo. They initially met through a blind date in 2023, but just a year later in 2024, he’d already put a ring on it and sent their combined net worths to new insufferable heights.

James and Georgia were wed in Scotland earlier this year, in a low-key ceremony that translated as a desperate attempt to seem like everyday people.

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Featured image credit: Johanna Basford/Georgia Toffolo/Emili Ziem