During the final stages of the breakdown of his marriage, Le Mesurier met Joan Malin at the Establishment club in Soho in 1963. The following year he moved out of his marital house, and that day proposed to Joan, who accepted his offer. Le Mesurier allowed Jacques to bring a divorce suit on grounds of his own infidelity, to ensure that the press blamed him for the break-up, thus avoiding any negative publicity for Jacques. Le Mesurier and Malin married in March 1966. A few months after they were married, Joan began a relationship with Tony Hancock, and left Le Mesurier to move in with the Comedian. Hancock was a self-confessed alcoholic by this time, and was verbally and physically abusive to Joan during their relationship. After a year together, with Hancock's violence towards her worsening, Joan attempted suicide; she subsequently realised that she could no longer live with Hancock and returned to her husband. Despite this, Le Mesurier remained friends with Hancock, calling him "a comic of true genius, capable of great warmth and generosity, but a tormented and unhappy man". Without Le Mesurier's knowledge, Joan resumed her affair with Hancock and, when the comic moved to Australia in 1968, she planned to follow him if he was able to overcome his alcoholism. She abandoned these plans and remained with Mesurier after Hancock committed suicide on 25 June 1968.