Bradley Wiggins’ wife was ‘nearly killed’ by doping allegations and ended up in rehab

He said: "You watch your family suffer, and it’s terrible. It nearly killed my wife. She ended up in rehab over it. I’m at home having to deal with it.

"Because she’s bi-polar she has this fear of shame, people watching her all the time. She's really good now. She's moving on.

"You couldn’t say that at the time because you’ve asked for it, because you’ve won the Tour de France. No, I didn’t ask for that actually. I only asked for a fair trial."

Wiggins remains frustrated.

He added: "What I should have done is murder someone because then I’d have had proper rights. I’d have had more rights as a murderer.

"There’d have been no articles and I’d have had a fair trial. I’d have been cleared or found guilty. Not somewhere in the middle where you can’t find any evidence of wrongdoing.”

The Englishman does not hold back when discussing former boss at Team Sky Sir Dave Brailsford.

Sean Yates - Wiggins' former team-mate who helped him with the 2012 Tour - left Sky in October 2012.

Wiggins said: "They said his health was the reason but they got rid of him because of the association with Lance [Armstrong].

"That’s typical Dave and Sky. As long as it looks good on paper, f*** what it’s actually like behind the scenes.”

Wiggo is about to embark on a one-man on stage tour discussing his new book, Icons: My Inspiration. My Motivation. My Obsession.

And he knows what he will do if the troubles start to rise again after the tour begins.

He said: "I’m doing this one-man tour on stage about the book. Going round the country. I’ll tell stories, a bit of comedy. Some impressions. I’ll be great. Being myself is enough.

"I’ll just have a bottle of red. A bottle of wine changes the world."