Secret Celebrity Gossip #18

[here4thebantz]

On the Tom Hardy height issue, a friend was at a Peaky Blinders premiere in Birmingham where lots of fans were waiting outside to watch the stars walk the red carpet. When Tom appeared an older lady (possibly not realising how loud she was) piped up in a very strong Black Country accent “ooooooo he’s awful petite isn’t he?”. Crowd were in hysterics.

If it was a Black Country accent we would say "Hes a little mon ay he"

 

[tskiry56]

Richard Madeley is a moron

Richard Madeley apologises for 'misjudged' advice column about domestic violence

The TV presenter has been criticised by charities over his response to a Telegraph reader asking for advice about a neighbour.

news.sky.com

I just read this ... his totally wrong to even speak out on this. Obviously it's a topic his not had any experience in.

Unfortunately for us 'lucky ones' who have been through it. I can say from my own experience I was too emotionally controlled to have the confidence to speak out. My ex always made me believe it was my fault and no one would believe me.
He also hurt me in places I could cover up like my arm or my leg.
I had a young child and for some reason didnt want to be a single mum. I was made to believe I needed him as a provider. ( He used to say he earned double my salary etc)
I used to live in a terraced house and have no idea if my neighbours heard anything.
Victims of violence are scared and need someone to help them. The only reason i eventually found the courage to speak out was because I went to work with blood pouring down my head after he strangled, kicked me and head butted me!

I for one having gained controlled of my life and stood up to an abuser would never want someone to not speak out.

 

[PeteM]

Love the pics of Pierce Brosnan and his wife in The Daily Fail, they try to do a hatchet job as his wife is bigger than she was 20 years ago but they always look so in love. Even most of the comments at the bottom say the same.

I wonder what Ruth Jones thinks of James Corden given they worked together? she seems decent.

Well it's well known that she did most of the writing.

 

[SarcasticEllis]

Richard Madeley is a moron

Richard Madeley apologises for 'misjudged' advice column about domestic violence

The TV presenter has been criticised by charities over his response to a Telegraph reader asking for advice about a neighbour.

news.sky.com

Oh for fucks sake. He’s always been an insufferable prick but now he’s a dangerously ignorant one too

 

[Eirawen]

Historically, he had a hearing problem - with the word No. Especially from bigger girls who he felt should have been grateful for his attention. Friend of the now Mr Dragon would go drinking in Camden, but stopped after No developed into Seriously, duck off before I call the police or get my 6 foot five biker ex to have a word. She used the words Scary and Stalker. And started going out fifteen miles away to avoid him.

It was Russell who also held up filming (can't remember what film) because he refused to go back on set until the wardrobe mistress showed him her breasts.

 

[SarcasticEllis]

Historically, he had a hearing problem - with the word No. Especially from bigger girls who he felt should have been grateful for his attention. Friend of the now Mr Dragon would go drinking in Camden, but stopped after No developed into Seriously, duck off before I call the police or get my 6 foot five biker ex to have a word. She used the words Scary and Stalker. And started going out fifteen miles away to avoid him.

I recently re-read his autobiography and he mentioned a time (back in drugs days as opposed to becoming famous) where his girlfriend was ready to chuck him out, and he wheedled and wheedled until he was back in the house and kept on going to try to convince her to have sex with him. Proper sex pest.

 

[April Ludgate]

The Turner family have certainly produced more than their share of gossip. I know that Anthea’s sister, Wendy, had gone bankrupt a while back (she has featured in more than one personal finance book as a cautionary tale: in one she talks about flying first class, drinking champagne and ‘going gloriously bankrupt’), but I read up on the back story and it’s barmy.

So Wendy Turner gets a few presenting jobs in the 1990s, probably from working Anthea’s and Peter Powell’s connections, Pet Rescue and a short-lived game show with Anthea I think, and makes pretty good money, as seemed to be common at the time (I don’t know whether it’s true, but I have heard several former TV presenters complain that there isn’t as much money in TV jobs as there used to be. Maybe they just mean for themselves, because they were only getting offered the crap jobs, or none at all).

She gets married to an actor called Gary Webster who played Arthur Daley’s new sidekick in Minder for a few years, until the show was cancelled. They live like royalty, imagining that the cash will keep rolling in forever. It doesn’t. Their shows are both cancelled. He gets a couple of years’ work on a daytime soap, and some bit parts in The Bill and Eastenders, but they don’t pay big money. They don’t bother putting any money aside for tax. You know what’s going to happen, don’t you? They go bankrupt, owing HMRC £25k (him) and £100k (her).

Do they scale down their lifestyle? Do they hell. They send their sons to a private school, at a cost of £35k a year. They also lived in an expensive rented house in London. She wasn’t working much, so how did they afford their lifestyle? Answer: they borrowed £150k from friends and family, which they haven’t paid back. What were they thinking???

it gets weirder. Gary Webster has two goes at private enterprise. First, he tries to set up finance for a film that he’d be directing. He claimed to have commitments from investors to put £15 million into his film and borrowed a mint of money from banks on the strength of it. Neither the £15m nor the film ever materialised.

Next, and this is where it starts getting really barmy, he decides to turn himself into a pound shop Alan Sugar/humanitarian (the type of “humanitarian” who personally benefits from their endeavours; we’ve seen a few of them recently). He announces that he’s a ‘consultant’ in a project to bring together a ‘global aviation company’ with the government of a West African country (unspecified) to supply an air ambulance.

Eh??? If you were a government and/or a proper aviation business, why would you think, “I know what we need to get this project off the ground. A washed up bankrupt actor who used to be in Minder. Yes, that is exactly who we need.”

The project went ahead all right. Without Webster, who claimed that he should have made £1.4 million out of it. Why would an African government pay him £1.4 million? Why would an aviation business give him £1.4 million of their margin? What value could somebody like him possibly add to such a project?

The Turner-Websters continued to spend £35k a year on private schools but couldn’t afford their rented house any more so lived in Travelodges with their sons, occasionally sleeping in their car. WTF???

Apparently Wendy and Anthea aren’t speaking because Wendy borrowed so much money from Anthea and can’t/won’t pay it back. I can imagine how Anthea would be annoyed if Wendy was continuing to spaff £35k a year on private schools instead of paying her back, particularly since Anthea and Grant Bovey appear to have jointly gone bankrupt before splitting up.

Thank you, Turner sisters, for your outstanding contribution to gossip. You and your husbands.

I worked in Bridalwear for years. The first shop I worked at (Virgin Bride- owned by RB) made Wendy Turner's wedding dress because she was a vegan and wouldn't wear any real silk fabric. Being vegan was quite unusual at the time. She insisted that it look like real silk, so alterations department had to make it from this awful fake raw silk that is usually used for upholstery. It was a horrible lilac colour, with a weird flouncy train and had diamantès all over the bodice. TACKY AF.

 

[Handerton]

The Turner-Websters continued to spend £35k a year on private schools but couldn’t afford their rented house any more so lived in Travelodges with their sons, occasionally sleeping in their car. WTF???

Apparently Wendy and Anthea aren’t speaking because Wendy borrowed so much money from Anthea and can’t/won’t pay it back. I can imagine how Anthea would be annoyed if Wendy was continuing to spaff £35k a year on private schools instead of paying her back, particularly since Anthea and Grant Bovey appear to have jointly gone bankrupt before splitting up.

Thank you, Turner sisters, for your outstanding contribution to gossip. You and your husbands.

I’ve done some finance work for private schools over the past decade. Many of them are in dire straights. Lots of parents default on fees making just token payments when pressed, promising to pay up “when my business gets back on its feet”. For the schools they have two choices: Chuck the kids out, lowering their numbers, which are already at all time lows, and have prospective new parents wondering why the school has so few pupils, or keep on hoping at least some of the parents will one day pay up. Wouldn’t be surprised if these two have massive school fee debts outstanding. And of course because falling numbers make the industry competitive, there’s often another school that will take the kids with an initial payment and then they too will be chasing money owed within six months

The school they are leaving won’t/can’t tell their competitors they are owed thousands, the new school thinks they are doing a great job recruiting new pupils. Lots of private schools have closed or are closing for this exact reason.

 

[HockyRorror]

Oh for fucks sake. He’s always been an insufferable prick but now he’s a dangerously ignorant one too

I lay as much blame on these stupid newspapers and magazines for hiring unqualified celebrities to respond to things that they know absolutely duck all about, just for the name.

 

[Eirawen]

I worked in Bridalwear for years. The first shop I worked at (Virgin Bride- owned by RB) made Wendy Turner's wedding dress because she was a vegan and wouldn't wear any real silk fabric. Being vegan was quite unusual at the time. She insisted that it look like real silk, so alterations department had to make it from this awful fake raw silk that is usually used for upholstery. It was a horrible lilac colour, with a weird flouncy train and had diamantès all over the bodice. TACKY AF.

Oh god it sounds tacky and why lilac?

 

[Flossy]

Faye was always my favourite Steps member. She lives about 20 mins from me, and I only found out recently shes behind the Skinnypigs fitness classes!

What do you mean she’s behind Skinnypigs, did she create it?! I never knew that!

 

[Won’t you have a cup]

I worked in Bridalwear for years. The first shop I worked at (Virgin Bride- owned by RB) made Wendy Turner's wedding dress because she was a vegan and wouldn't wear any real silk fabric. Being vegan was quite unusual at the time. She insisted that it look like real silk, so alterations department had to make it from this awful fake raw silk that is usually used for upholstery. It was a horrible lilac colour, with a weird flouncy train and had diamantès all over the bodice. TACKY AF.

I just looked up the wedding dress and you are quite right. Christ, it’s awful. Anthea (bridesmaid) is wearing a terrible lilac satin dress and the worst shoes in Christendom (lilac satin square toed slingbacks). However, here’s the interesting thing, who is standing next to Gary Webster on the cover of OK! magazine, presumably as the best man? Only Philip Middlemiss, who coincidentally also became ’an official consultant’ (that phrase, used by Webster, makes me laugh so much...making sure that we know that he wasn’t an unofficial consultant, you understand) in the sale of aircraft to Ghana. Just fancy that!

I’ve done some finance work for private schools over the past decade. Many of them are in dire straights. Lots of parents default on fees making just token payments when pressed, promising to pay up “when my business gets back on its feet”. For the schools they have two choices: Chuck the kids out, lowering their numbers, which are already at all time lows, and have prospective new parents wondering why the school has so few pupils, or keep on hoping at least some of the parents will one day pay up. Wouldn’t be surprised if these two have massive school fee debts outstanding. And of course because falling numbers make the industry competitive, there’s often another school that will take the kids with an initial payment and then they too will be chasing money owed within six months

The school they are leaving won’t/can’t tell their competitors they are owed thousands, the new school thinks they are doing a great job recruiting new pupils. Lots of private schools have closed or are closing for this exact reason.

Not surprised by this at all.

If anyone has read Vanity Fair (I doubt that Wendy’n’Gary have, just a hunch), Rebecca and Rawdon Crawley manage to ‘live well on nothing a year’ by getting their creditors in so deep - the man who owns their house particularly, to whom they pay no rent and whom they continually fob off - that the creditors can’t afford to fall out with them too badly since maintaining a relationship is the only hope they have of getting their money back.

 

[strange addiction]

Im not surprised by this actually. I think Piers puts on an act, and Ruth and Eamon have always seemed genuinely nice people.

I have to agree, Eamon is sooo nice. I work where he use to live and he always replies to my DMs on twitter especially if it's for the good of the area and agreed to do a video message when I was making the area dementia friendly (unfortunately I contacted him too late) I offered to check in on his mum during the pandemic

Also I dont think people 'get' Eamonns sense of humour. Belfast people can sound very dry & witty but people can mistake it for rudeness. I've no doubt hes has his days like all of us (like the day im having today where if someone looks at me wrong I'm going to throat punch them but thankfully in not on TV for people to see my bad mood!)

 

[Vanillaco]

I just looked up the wedding dress and you are quite right. Christ, it’s awful. Anthea (bridesmaid) is wearing a terrible lilac satin dress and the worst shoes in Christendom (lilac satin square toed slingbacks). However, here’s the interesting thing, who is standing next to Gary Webster on the cover of OK! magazine, presumably as the best man? Only Philip Middlemiss, who coincidentally also became ’an official consultant’ (that phrase, used by Webster, makes me laugh so much...making sure that we know that he wasn’t an unofficial consultant, you understand) in the sale of aircraft to Ghana. Just fancy that!



Not surprised by this at all.

If anyone has read Vanity Fair (I doubt that Wendy’n’Gary have, just a hunch), Rebecca and Rawdon Crawley manage to ‘live well on nothing a year’ by getting their creditors in so deep - the man who owns their house particularly, to whom they pay no rent and whom they continually fob off - that the creditors can’t afford to fall out with them too badly since maintaining a relationship is the only hope they have of getting their money back.

Yes I think a lot of zelebs live on debt and borrowing stuff to put on Instagram so all the 'look at my lovely home' is filled with stuff people have lent them for publicity. The rest of it is serviced by huge amounts of cheap/ interest free credit. As the saying goes, a little debt=my problem, a lot of debt=the banks problem!

 

[suspecrobot]

Grayson Perry (another Richard Herring podcast interview) said that he lived in a squat with Marilyn et al for a period of time, and he was a bit scary to sit in a car with (with Marilyn at the steering wheel).

Think in Boy George's biography (Take It Like A Man) he said Marilyn's pop "career" was cut short because he was so bitchy to everyone, even record execs, and wasn't that good at schmoozing. Shame as I thought he was a bit more streetwise than that. That's all I've got about Marilyn, really.

(Marilyn's songs weren't that great, either, to be fair).

Yes, a bland talent free zone signed up for his looks alone. If you want to be the next Boy George, then make sure you have some of his attributes; charisma for a start.

A friend of mine from a few years back was the director of the Brits in the good years. Her best friend is Helen Terry who was a producer of the Brits, and previously a backing singer for Culture Club in the early 80s. She and George fell out when he claimed HT got him into drugs. George was by all accounts a massive witch back then, but is less so now.

My friend is also good pals with Chrissie Hynde and Jim Kerr, and had the misfortune to meet Patsy Kensit on many occasions when she was married to Jim. Not a very nice piece of work, apparently.

No goss on Chrissie Hynde. There must be tons but my pal was annoyingly discreet and all I learned was that Chrissie is a very loyal friend and that her favourite dish was Aubergine and Parmesan Gratin.

 

[Bitofthebubbly]

I like Eamonn. Me and my mum walked past him (and Ruth) at Belfast airport a few years ago, didn't want to stop and bother them as they looked busy and had their son with them, but we said hello and Eamonn said hello back and smiled. Highlight of our trip

I love how you can smile and say hello to celebs as you walk past and they’re (usually) totally ok with it even though they have no idea who you are must be weird having people you don’t know recognise you, well it would be for me anyway.

Once stopped to let Karen Carney (England ladies footballer) through a gap in homesense and I smiled/grimaced awkwardly as she walked past whilst being slightly star struck . I’m not brave enough to actually say hello to people!

There are so many stories about James Cordon and his rudeness. For anyone who missed my earlier post / not seen the Popbitch story

That reads like a pub joke but I believe it.

 

[Pinko]

I just looked up the wedding dress and you are quite right. Christ, it’s awful. Anthea (bridesmaid) is wearing a terrible lilac satin dress and the worst shoes in Christendom (lilac satin square toed slingbacks). However, here’s the interesting thing, who is standing next to Gary Webster on the cover of OK! magazine, presumably as the best man? Only Philip Middlemiss, who coincidentally also became ’an official consultant’ (that phrase, used by Webster, makes me laugh so much...making sure that we know that he wasn’t an unofficial consultant, you understand) in the sale of aircraft to Ghana. Just fancy that!



Not surprised by this at all.

If anyone has read Vanity Fair (I doubt that Wendy’n’Gary have, just a hunch), Rebecca and Rawdon Crawley manage to ‘live well on nothing a year’ by getting their creditors in so deep - the man who owns their house particularly, to whom they pay no rent and whom they continually fob off - that the creditors can’t afford to fall out with them too badly since maintaining a relationship is the only hope they have of getting their money back.

Yes I thought that Middlemas and Webster were best mates! Very bizarre

 

[Very traditional]

Oh god it sounds tacky and why lilac?

The dress, the bridesmaids dress, both pairs of shoes! All absolutely terrible looking, what would possess you. I did google her wedding to the rower too and that wasn’t much better

 

[Sloggingaway]

Yes I thought that Middlemas and Webster were best mates! Very bizarre

View attachment 169186

Looks like no one else got married that year then!
Wedding of the year

 

[Won’t you have a cup]

Turns out that Gary Webster and Philip Middlemiss used to own a pub together: the Grant Arms in Ramsbottom in Lancashire. Which quickly went into liquidation, in 1996. With a business record like that, no wonder global aviation businesses were rushing to snap them up for their commercial and negotiation skills.

Whatever the truth of what happened with the Ghanaian aircraft deals, Gary’n’Phil are starting to look like patsies. And I don’t mean the Kensit variety: the sort who are dupes/fall guys who end up carrying the can when a crime goes wrong. What a pair of idiots.