Who shall I bed first ..you or your wife?

GAY EastEnders star Michael French taunted his co-star Lindsey Coulson with claims of a homo-sexual fling with her HUSBAND.

And French - Albert Square's womanising David Wicks - flirted with Lindsey's shocked husband Phillip Chard, asking him: "Which one will I lay first, you or your wife?"

Now tormented Phillip believes the actor was deliberately trying to wreck his marriage because he had rejected his homosexual advances.

Insiders said that French - revealed as gay by the Sunday Mirror last week - falsely claimed during a boozy dinner with Phillip, Lindsey and her sister that he had slept with him.

Infatuated

"Michael was trying to drive a wedge between me and Lindsey," Phillip confirms. "Not a word of what he said was true."

Insiders revealed how French became "infatuated" with handsome agent Phillip, 32, when they first met during a performance of Guys And Dolls in Manchester in 1983.

They met again when French joined the cast of EastEnders.

Now Phillip has told pals that French went on to have an affair with Lindsey - Carol Jackson in the top soap - "to get back at him". Distraught Phillip plans to name French in his divorce from Lindsey, 34.

Details of the weird love triangle come a week after we told how French, 34, was having a gay affair with actor Bryan Lawrence.

French had become a regular visitor to the north London home of Lindsey and Phillip after arriving on the set two years ago.

But insiders say Phillip fell out with French after the heart- throb taunted him with the gay jibes. A source said: "Michael tried to wind Phillip up and was acting very strangely and maliciously.

"He eventually looked Phillip in the eye and said, 'Which one will I lay first, you or your wife?'

"Phillip was totally speechless. But he knew that Michael had some sort of obsession with him and his family. He felt Michael was making a play for his wife to break them up.

"Phillip felt that Michael was jealous of his wife and little daughter, Molly - normal things Michael knew would never be possible for him."

Phillip discovered the relationship between French and his wife after she shared a trip to Brighton with her co-star last year.

Later, when the three of them met to sort out the marriage crisis over dinner, French taunted Lindsey - in front of her sister.

Fling

A friend said: "It was like something out of a black comedy. "

"Michael started dropping hints that Phillip had been his lover when they were both working on Guys and Dolls in Manchester. Everyone had been drinking, but there was no doubt that he intended to be taken seriously.""

As he left his office in London's Holborn Phillip confirmed: "Michael said some extremely unpleasant things.

"He was trying to provoke something, hinting that something had gone on between us. "There was no truth in it whatsoever. I have been very hurt."

Last night a friend of Phillip's said: "He was totally confused by what was going on.

"Michael had been a friend and now he was acting like an enemy."

Now Lindsey feels she has been used and is as devastated as her husband.

"She no longer has anything to do with Michael," a friend said.

"She plays her scenes with him and that is it. She realises how much she has lost.

"There is no way that she and Phillip can repair their marriage."

Copyright 1996 MGN LTD
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.