London, Apr. 25 : Chelsea mid-fielder Frank Lampard took the extraordinary step of calling a radio show to defend himself against suggestions that he had abandoned his two daughters by letting them live "in inferior circumstances" after he split with his Spanish fiancée Elen Rives.

In an emotional exchange, Lampard said he called James O''Brien''s phone-in programme on LBC to defend himself against "idiots like you" after the presenter said men who behaved in that way were "weak and scum".

Rives had claimed that she and Luna, two, and Isla, one, were living in a small flat, while Lampard stayed in their 8.5 million pound town house.

"The hardest part of this whole break-up for me is not waking up with my kids every day. It breaks my heart - do you think I''m happy? You don''t know anything about me. I find it insulting that you are insinuating that I am weak and scum. You''re saying ''Any man that lets his kids live in inferior circumstances to him is weak and scum''. You''re insinuating that about me," The Telegraph quoted Lampard, as saying.

Lampard said he and Rives had joint custody of the children, who spent three nights a week with him, and that they were only staying in a flat as a temporary measure until he bought a house for them and Rives.

He said he was already "distressed" because yesterday was the first anniversary of the death of his mother, Pat.

Lampard, who is worth 30-million-pounds and earns 120,000-pounds-a-week, said: "Unfortunately I've split up with my girlfriend so they're now living in a temporary flat in Fulham. It's not a bad flat at all and I'm actually buying a house at the moment which is of equal living standard if not more to mine. When you split up obviously you're not going to carry on living in the same place, that's a fact of life."

He added: "For three nights of the week, half the nights of the week, and I'm away probably two to three nights with my football anyway, the kids wake up in my house. I look after my kids solely. I have a nanny that comes but I spend all the time with my kids.

"I wake up if my kids wake up at three in the morning, if they wake up at six in the morning, regardless of whether there is a football match or not. They wake up in the bedrooms I decorated for them and that's what they'll always do.

"Everything I do in my career in football terms, before I had kids it was all for myself and since I've had kids, every penny I earn and every ounce and every yard I run on the football pitch is for my kids."

Lampard, who cheated on Elen at least twice during their seven-year relationship, then angrily rounded on O'Brien.

He said: "So before you start insinuating and calling people weak and scum on a radio station, getting on a high horse which you are, I hope one day that your wife or your girlfriend doesn't come to you and say I don't want to be with you anymore and unfortunately that means you won't see the kids for a few days a week. That will hurt you as well but you'd have to deal with it." (ANI)