Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s former First Minister and a towering figure in UK politics for nearly a decade, is set to release her much-anticipated memoir, Frankly, on August 14, 2025. In a series of candid and sometimes searing extracts published by The Times and widely reported by the BBC and Daily Mail, Sturgeon lays bare the personal and political turmoil that has defined her recent years—from her arrest in connection with the Scottish National Party’s finances to her struggles with pregnancy and the relentless swirl of rumors about her private life.
Sturgeon’s arrest in June 2023, as part of Police Scotland’s Operation Branchform probe into SNP finances, was, in her own words, "the worst day of my life." The investigation had already upended her world months earlier, when police raided the Glasgow home she shared with her husband, Peter Murrell, around 7 a.m. on April 5, 2023. "It was with a sense of utter disbelief that I realised the police were in my home, that they had a warrant to arrest my husband and search the house," Sturgeon writes. "I was in despair, struggling to comprehend what had happened."
The period between that raid and her own arrest left Sturgeon feeling as if she had "fallen into the plot of a dystopian novel." She describes being "horrified and devastated" by the experience but also, paradoxically, "relieved in a strange sort of way. At least the ordeal of waiting was over." After her arrest and questioning, she was left in such a "bad state mentally" that she retreated to a friend’s house in northeast Scotland for a week, seeking solace and distance from the relentless spotlight.
Sturgeon’s ordeal was compounded by the arrest and subsequent embezzlement charge against her husband, Peter Murrell, in April 2024. The couple, who had been together since 2003 and married in 2010, announced their separation earlier this year. Reflecting on her time under investigation—nearly two years in the public eye—Sturgeon describes it as "a nightmare with no end" and "a form of mental torture." She writes, "Being the subject of a high-profile criminal investigation for almost two years, especially having committed no crime, was like a form of mental torture." Yet, when she was informed in March 2025 that she would face no further action and was no longer a suspect, the feeling was "overwhelming relief and release."
But Sturgeon’s memoir is far from a mere political confessional. It is also a deeply personal account, unflinching in its honesty about her private struggles. One of the most poignant sections details her experience of miscarriage at the age of 40, in 2010. She admits to being "ambivalent" about having children, writing, "I was overwhelmed by guilt. I felt guilty about being pregnant, about not feeling happier about being pregnant, about not being as happy as Peter was, about hiding that from him." When she miscarried, Sturgeon was left "desolate and heartbroken"—an agony that was only intensified by her belief that the loss was "punishment for not wanting the baby badly enough." She describes the pain as "the most excruciating" she has ever experienced and confesses, "I do deeply regret not getting the chance to be Isla’s mum. It might not make sense, but she feels real to me. And I know that I will mourn her for the rest of my life."
Sturgeon’s reflections on motherhood are layered with regret and acceptance. She writes that if she could turn back time, she would have chosen to have children, but only if it would not have derailed her political career—a tension familiar to many women in public life. "I didn’t feel my life is 'worthless' because I never became a mother," she asserts, but the sense of loss remains palpable.
Throughout her career, Sturgeon has also been the subject of persistent rumors about her sexuality and private relationships. In Frankly, she addresses these head-on, revealing for the first time that she does not consider her sexuality to be "binary." She writes, "Long-term relationships with men have accounted for more than thirty years of my life, but I have never considered sexuality, my own included, to be binary. Moreover, sexual relationships should be private matters."
Sturgeon details the "wild stories from the darker recesses of social media" that have dogged her, including unfounded claims of a lesbian affair with French diplomat Catherine Colonna. She recounts how the rumors—sometimes involving elaborate tales of a "violent encounter" in Edinburgh’s Balmoral Hotel or a "love nest" in Bridge of Allan—spread beyond the internet into real life, with neighbors and family members being asked about them. "For many of those peddling it, 'lesbian' and 'gay' are meant as insults," she observes. "However, while the fact I was being lied about got under my skin, the nature of the insult itself was water off a duck’s back."
Sturgeon describes her "fury" at suggestions that she had used a superinjunction to block stories about her private life—"a blatant lie," she insists, noting that such a legal remedy isn’t even available in Scots law. She also recalls laughing off the rumors with Colonna herself, joking at a meeting of EU ambassadors and later at COP27 in Egypt. "The online frenzy which ensued suggested that we had successfully trolled the trolls," she writes, but she is quick to note the "blatant homophobia at the heart of the 'story'."
The former First Minister’s desire for privacy is a recurring theme. She writes about the toll that public scrutiny has taken on her mental health and her longing for "a bit more anonymity" after stepping down from office. "I just want to protect some of what people take for granted in their lives that I have forgotten to have," she confides.
Sturgeon’s memoir was written over many months, with 10 to 15 hours a week dedicated to the project. She received a £75,000 advance from publisher Pan Macmillan in August 2023, the first of four installments. The book will be launched at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, and Sturgeon is set to give an in-depth interview to ITV News at Ten presenter Julie Etchingham just days before its release.
For supporters and critics alike, Frankly promises a rare glimpse into the personal cost of public life, the pressures of leadership, and the resilience required to weather both political storms and private grief. Sturgeon’s story is one of survival, self-examination, and, above all, candor—a testament to a woman who has spent her life at the center of the storm and is finally telling her own story, in her own words.
