Devilish, Widowed, Left To Her Pies,
A Wish...Her Hope...Slip't From Memory To 'Er Eyes,
Soon Mrs. Lovett Would Be More Than A Lonesome Miss,
Hard Worker, On Her Grind, The Baker Became Accomplice.

Mrs. Nellie Lovett (sometimes called Maggie or Claudette) is the accomplice and only friend of fabled serial killer Sweeney Todd. In some versions of the story, she is also his lover. She is not necessarily evil, but is a twisted, crazed woman who feels no qualms about making her meat pies out of Sweeney Todd's freshly murdered victims. In fact, it is she that develops the gruesome plan.

Long ago, when Sweeney was known as Benjamin Barker and had a beautiful wife named Lucy, Mrs. Lovett harbored a crush for him. When Barker was arrested and sent to Australia on a trumped-up charge because of Judge Turpin's lust for Lucy, Mrs. Lovett stole Barker's razors for safe keeping. When Barker returned to London, now under the alias of Sweeney Todd, Mrs. Lovett told him of the judge's plot and that Lucy poisoned herself after the judge raped her. When Sweeney goes insane, he and Lovett plot to bake his victims in her meat pies.

In the end, it is revealed that Lovett left out an important piece of information: Lucy lived, although she went mad and ended up a beggar on the street. Sweeney kills Lucy, not knowing who she is. When it is revealed who she is and that Sweeney has inadvertantly murdered his own wife, he kills Mrs. Lovett by throwing her in an oven alive.