Rio & Kate Ferdinand

[Handerton]

You seem to know a lot about this industry so I was wondering if you know what the deal is with Backgrid. It seems to me every zlister has them on speed dial. Who pays who?

I’m totally confused by the company. The American parent organisation deals with people making million dollar shows, Instagram celebs who have big clothing company affiliate contracts, but the British arm... they seem to be everywhere but only have accrued £130k in the bank over the last tax year. Why deal with dozens of z listers for that sort of money, when someone like Linekars agent is making 15% of his £2m BBC fee each year just for keeping a few things quiet? It makes no financial sense to deal with people who only have limited reality based earning power, especially in an era where we get another 100 reality names every year

What I can say, and everyone’s probably noticed this, is that news websites are dealing with their lack of sales, terrible click through rates, and financial losses by moving to a model where people like Rio who want positive PR can pay for fluff stories, and pay extra to have the comments moderated so nobody is saying anything negative about them. Fortunately for us it’s a model not yet totally working it’s also the reason the DM bizarrely features that tattooed italian old man most days even though nobody has ever heard of him

 

[Catie miller]

I’m totally confused by the company. The American parent organisation deals with people making million dollar shows, Instagram celebs who have big clothing company affiliate contracts, but the British arm... they seem to be everywhere but only have accrued £130k in the bank over the last tax year. Why deal with dozens of z listers for that sort of money, when someone like Linekars agent is making 15% of his £2m BBC fee each year just for keeping a few things quiet? It makes no financial sense to deal with people who only have limited reality based earning power, especially in an era where we get another 100 reality names every year

What I can say, and everyone’s probably noticed this, is that news websites are dealing with their lack of sales, terrible click through rates, and financial losses by moving to a model where people like Rio who want positive PR can pay for fluff stories, and pay extra to have the comments moderated so nobody is saying anything negative about them. Fortunately for us it’s a model not yet totally working it’s also the reason the DM bizarrely features that tattooed italian old man most days even though nobody has ever heard of him

Who is the Italian man?

 

[Moe]

I’m totally confused by the company. The American parent organisation deals with people making million dollar shows, Instagram celebs who have big clothing company affiliate contracts, but the British arm... they seem to be everywhere but only have accrued £130k in the bank over the last tax year. Why deal with dozens of z listers for that sort of money, when someone like Linekars agent is making 15% of his £2m BBC fee each year just for keeping a few things quiet? It makes no financial sense to deal with people who only have limited reality based earning power, especially in an era where we get another 100 reality names every year

What I can say, and everyone’s probably noticed this, is that news websites are dealing with their lack of sales, terrible click through rates, and financial losses by moving to a model where people like Rio who want positive PR can pay for fluff stories, and pay extra to have the comments moderated so nobody is saying anything negative about them. Fortunately for us it’s a model not yet totally working it’s also the reason the DM bizarrely features that tattooed italian old man most days even though nobody has ever heard of him

Thank you. I have noticed comments heavily moderated or limited to one so I did think this was an additional payment plus an additional photoshop payment before any publication. A few years back the photoshop wasn’t part of the package.
It seems as I thought the z lister or whoever pay for this service and offset it against earnings to try and stay relevant.

 

[Vanillaco]

I’m totally confused by the company. The American parent organisation deals with people making million dollar shows, Instagram celebs who have big clothing company affiliate contracts, but the British arm... they seem to be everywhere but only have accrued £130k in the bank over the last tax year. Why deal with dozens of z listers for that sort of money, when someone like Linekars agent is making 15% of his £2m BBC fee each year just for keeping a few things quiet? It makes no financial sense to deal with people who only have limited reality based earning power, especially in an era where we get another 100 reality names every year

What I can say, and everyone’s probably noticed this, is that news websites are dealing with their lack of sales, terrible click through rates, and financial losses by moving to a model where people like Rio who want positive PR can pay for fluff stories, and pay extra to have the comments moderated so nobody is saying anything negative about them. Fortunately for us it’s a model not yet totally working it’s also the reason the DM bizarrely features that tattooed italian old man most days even though nobody has ever heard of him

That is interesting! I've noticed that there are just tons of pictures of people I've never heard of in bikinis! I assumed it was because I wasnt up with the z list news! It's rare I see someone I know, and even then its things like 'Jenna Coleman walks down the street' attached to a rehashed story from other stories and some grainy long lens photos of a grumpy looking actress
What's the story with the z list agency? I presume they are just gone for tons of bargain basement clients rather than the cream of the crop ( like Harrods can sell 1 bag and make a ton of profit whereas B &M will have to sell hundreds!) They dont have to cover much up (although Rio is probably the exception) because for z listers any news is good news. They probably dont charge 15% either!

 

[Columbo]

Ok loving this thread I used to watch Kate in Towie but knew very little about Rio apart from the face he seemed to move on very quickly after his wife died. I watched their documentary and in Kate’s defence I thought she came across as genuinely caring for the kids, more so than their father. He obviously wanted someone pretty who’d put up and shut up and stay at home with his kids so that he can go off shagging anything with a pulse.

Didn’t he get suspended from Man U for missing a routine drugs test or something? Obviously a very shady character.

Kate must have a thing for cheaters, Dan Edgar was shagging around back in her Towie days.

 

[Handerton]

Who is the Italian man?

Here we go, you made me visit the sidebar of shame

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowb...nluca-Vacchi-FLASHES-TV-watching-Friends.html

So not famous that I’m sure there are people in his family that haven’t heard of him

 

[Catie miller]

Here we go, you made me visit the sidebar of shame

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowb...nluca-Vacchi-FLASHES-TV-watching-Friends.html

So not famous that I’m sure there are people in his family that haven’t heard of him

Thanks ... I guess

 

[Handerton]

Thank you. I have noticed comments heavily moderated or limited to one so I did think this was an additional payment plus an additional photoshop payment before any publication. A few years back the photoshop wasn’t part of the package.
It seems as I thought the z lister or whoever pay for this service and offset it against earnings to try and stay relevant.

That’s doubtful now, as the only earning route for them is Herbalife which pays 15% fee for click through sales but nothing up front. All the fashion companies offering them exclusive lines are paying 1.5% max because they can get another love island type for less.
There’s no real magic key these days for minorly famous women except marrying a footballer or maybe yachting. We are too small a country and their “fame” doesn’t travel abroad and there are more and more of them competing for the same work which of course drives prices down.

A good one to look at is Gaz Beadle. He did as many nightclub appearances as he could for 18 months @ £250 a time, made a little from interviews, did the dreamboys tour, didn’t buy the flash car or try to make out he was loaded on social media, so ended up with a nice house (nothing flashy but almost paid for) and no need to be chasing fame now he has kids. If these people are realistic, they can get a decent boost from the fleeting fame, but even in the peak BB years when the glossies were selling hundreds of thousands of copies an issue... none of those people made a mint

 

[PinkPepper]

He is a complete twit and she’s a doormat. She knows he cheats on her but sees it as ok because he “chose” her to marry and she wants kids. He doesn’t even try hard to hide it. I feel for the kids.

 

[MamaD]

That’s doubtful now, as the only earning route for them is Herbalife which pays 15% fee for click through sales but nothing up front. All the fashion companies offering them exclusive lines are paying 1.5% max because they can get another love island type for less.
There’s no real magic key these days for minorly famous women except marrying a footballer or maybe yachting. We are too small a country and their “fame” doesn’t travel abroad and there are more and more of them competing for the same work which of course drives prices down.

A good one to look at is Gaz Beadle. He did as many nightclub appearances as he could for 18 months @ £250 a time, made a little from interviews, did the dreamboys tour, didn’t buy the flash car or try to make out he was loaded on social media, so ended up with a nice house (nothing flashy but almost paid for) and no need to be chasing fame now he has kids. If these people are realistic, they can get a decent boost from the fleeting fame, but even in the peak BB years when the glossies were selling hundreds of thousands of copies an issue... none of those people made a mint

I’m sure he owned (or still does) Plus nightclub in Laganas as well as having quite a big property portfolio. If they live in the North East, you get a lot more house for your money.

 

[Ladyloulou35]

I feel quite sad that I don’t know anyone who has shagged Rio...

I’m in a similar position, I don’t know anyone who would want to

 

[AngryBird101]

When I watched the Kate and Rio documentary then I couldn’t believe that Kate kept crying and I did wonder how on earth she can say she is so happy when she cries all the time, she just seemed to me to be the nanny, the chef and the cleaner and I didn’t like his Dad either, his behaviour has to have come from somewhere and I am blaming Dad.

 

[WhatwouldPrinnyDo]

his new grieving widower arena tour.

Love this!

as for the person who asked about his drugs test, I do remember the story that he didn’t turn up for his drug test, drove off and made out that he had just “forgot”, There was definitely more to this story as he DID then give them a sample ”two days later”..... hmmmm convenient... when drug traces would have left the system. anyway they take this kind of thing very seriously in sport and they clearly didn’t believe his story . Article attached below with all the details, but there was 18 hours worth of evidence in court which is quite a lot when he admittedly just ‘forgot‘.

BBC SPORT | Football | Ferdinand banned for eight months

 

[HaloGirl]

A rumour I heard at the time was Rio had done coke so obviously did not want to take the test. He was seen at a few clubs in London. Man Utd stood by him because they had paid £30 million for him which was then a transfer fee record for a defender.

 

[RDay]

That’s doubtful now, as the only earning route for them is Herbalife which pays 15% fee for click through sales but nothing up front. All the fashion companies offering them exclusive lines are paying 1.5% max because they can get another love island type for less.
There’s no real magic key these days for minorly famous women except marrying a footballer or maybe yachting. We are too small a country and their “fame” doesn’t travel abroad and there are more and more of them competing for the same work which of course drives prices down.

A good one to look at is Gaz Beadle. He did as many nightclub appearances as he could for 18 months @ £250 a time, made a little from interviews, did the dreamboys tour, didn’t buy the flash car or try to make out he was loaded on social media, so ended up with a nice house (nothing flashy but almost paid for) and no need to be chasing fame now he has kids. If these people are realistic, they can get a decent boost from the fleeting fame, but even in the peak BB years when the glossies were selling hundreds of thousands of copies an issue... none of those people made a mint

You do seem very knowledgeable and I really enjoy reading your posts. Are you in the business?

 

[AngryBird101]

A rumour I heard at the time was Rio had done coke so obviously did not want to take the test. He was seen at a few clubs in London. Man Utd stood by him because they had paid £30 million for him which was then a transfer fee record for a defender.

I can totally see him as a coke user, these narcissistic entitled fuckers always do take coke and the feeling off of coke will feed into their massive egos.

 

[WhatwouldPrinnyDo]

where people like Rio who want positive PR can pay for fluff stories,

Slightly offtopic, But that explains why Katie Price Is in all of the tabloids practically every day then ... she’s paying THEM !

 

[Handerton]

Slightly offtopic, But that explains why Katie Price Is in all of the tabloids practically every day then ... she’s paying THEM !

Haha maybe “in kind!”
I think there are a few like her, Goodger, Mark Wright etc who they will happily copy and paste articles on for years to come. DM website makes a loss and it’s a lot of content to produce daily, hence all the stories sourced solely from social media posts and recycling previously written text from other stories

You do seem very knowledgeable and I really enjoy reading your posts. Are you in the business?

Oh god no. But I worked in finance for many years and dealt with a lot of companies that had minor celebs as clients, all trying to avoid tax and coming up with mad schemes that they believed would make them millions from just their image rights. Never worked.
What I do now involves financial dealings for just one client, a moderately successful writer, I only do a day a week but I’ve learnt a heck of a lot about how keeping fame going works. Virtually every company that previously paid for articles now wants paying, Rupert Murdoch just announced that he’s closing dozens of papers in Australia and I can see our print industry going the same way in the next ten years. All of us here would have been buying gossip mags and newspapers back in 2000, but I bet not many of us do now

 

[tickletockle]

To the person who wrote about Rio and drug use - he has been a user for many years - you can tell that by his social circle and his irratic behaviour

I’d also like to share some stuff on his home life with the kids but see that I’m notallowed to under rules

Kate has removed the pictures on her on the same hotels as him - she’s removed a lot of them, including the onesof her top lesss working in nightclubs which are still searchable of if you go back far enough

Many people know what they ddI behind his wife’s back. A friend from work saw him and a beautiful woman in Bromley in a car park a few months after he came out with Kate, in his black range. She got out and went into the hotel and then he followed her in. He was all in black, including a black cap. Also a friend of my parents owns a boutique hotel near Banstead and saws he and a ‘posh’ girl were regular there for about a year before his relationship came out. Seems like he’s got plenty of girls and. This ‘mourning’ is a bit of an act.

o read the court papers and the guardian saying he assaulted three women?!?! That’s shocking!

 

[AngryBird101]

To the person who wrote about Rio and drug use - he has been a user for many years - you can tell that by his social circle and his irratic behaviour

I’d also like to share some stuff on his home life with the kids but see that I’m notallowed to under rules

Kate has removed the pictures on her on the same hotels as him - she’s removed a lot of them, including the onesof her top lesss working in nightclubs which are still searchable of if you go back far enough

Many people know what they ddI behind his wife’s back. A friend from work saw him and a beautiful woman in Bromley in a car park a few months after he came out with Kate, in his black range. She got out and went into the hotel and then he followed her in. He was all in black, including a black cap. Also a friend of my parents owns a boutique hotel near Banstead and saws he and a ‘posh’ girl were regular there for about a year before his relationship came out. Seems like he’s got plenty of girls and. This ‘mourning’ is a bit of an act.

o read the court papers and the guardian saying he assaulted three women?!?! That’s shocking!

He sounds like a sex addict, I bet Rebecca, his late wife, parents’ hate him but they need to keep him on side until their grandkids are old enough to see them without Dad.

He is an out and out creep and you can tell just from the way he talks.