The ‘cruel’ loss of billionaire philanthropist Hans Rausing’s second wife, Julia, was mourned by friends and family at a ‘very moving’ memorial service at St James’s, Piccadilly.
Art expert Julia died in April aged 63 following a lengthy battle with cancer. Tetra Pak heir Hans’s first wife, Eva, died from drug abuse in 2012.
‘Life is very cruel,’ Julia’s friend Daphne Guinness tells me. ‘In Hans, she found a loving and kind husband, in a triumphant and romantic marriage.’
Other mourners included the Queen’s first husband, Andrew Parker Bowles, and TV’s Trinny Woodall.
The Prince and Princess of Wales were represented by Catherine’s former private secretary Rebecca Priestley.
King gives home to loyal servant who was Queen Mother’s ‘voice’
As soon as Prince Charles ascended the throne, Queen Elizabeth’s personal assistant Angela Kelly, who had been promised a home for life, left her grace-and-favour cottage in Windsor Home Park.
Ms Kelly, who was nicknamed ‘AK-47’ due to her temper, moved to a house in the Peak District, 160 miles away, that the King bought for her. Now, I hear that the King and Queen Camilla have found a home at Windsor for one of their favourite servants, Leslie Chappell.
‘Leslie’s been given a grace-and-favour home at Windsor,’ one of his friends tells me. ‘It’s a very generous gesture.’
Chappell worked as the Queen Mother’s Page and is said to have helped maintain Charles’s close relationship with his grandmother by acting as her ‘voice’ when she was too weak to speak over the phone. He would tell her what Charles was saying, and she would whisper her replies for Chappell to pass on.
After the Queen Mother’s death, Chappell became the house manager at Clarence House, Charles and Camilla’s London residence.
Charles’s £1m Warhol fails to sell at auction
Don’t tell King Charles, but Andy Warhol’s portrait of him failed to sell when it went under the hammer on Thursday.
The silkscreened work had been estimated to fetch at least £1 million. At the same sale at Phillips auction house. the pop artist’s Portrait of Princess Diana went for £1.3million.
Another of Warhol’s ‘Dianas’ went for more than £2 million earlier this year. The images are based on Lord Snowdon’s engagement photo of the couple.
Warhol’s work was made to mark their wedding in 1982. A Phillips spokesman tells me: ‘The portrait of Charles received a lot of post-sale interest and quickly sold to a private buyer.’ They decline to disclose the sale price.
Monika puts a spring in step of Sheryl’s ex
Girls Aloud star Cheryl Cole married Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini after a whirlwind courtship of just three months, and separated 18 months later.
Now, I hear that the French businessman, known as ‘JB’, has found love with an employee at one of his companies. JB, 43, introduced Monika Abrasheva, 24, as his ‘girlfriend’ at a Frieze party in London’s Mayfair this week. The Bulgarian is a project manager at JB’s energy supplements start-up, Eleven Eleven.
She’s certainly given him a boost.
Ellie’s old flame goes to ex-tremes
When Ellie Goulding’s four-year marriage to Eton-educated art dealer Caspar Jopling collapsed, the pop singer, 37, found solace in the arms of her her Costa Rican surfing instructor.
Her estranged husband is, meanwhile, keeping himself occupied with extreme fitness challenges. The nephew of gallery owner Jay Jopling shared this snap of himself competing in an Ironman challenge in Barcelona.
The triathlon involves swimming 2.4 miles, riding a bicycle 112 miles and running a marathon. ‘This was nine hours into my 11hr 20min finish time,’ he says of this photograph, calling himself ‘regrettably ill-prepared’. The former Team GB rower, 32, adds: ‘But who doesn’t enjoy pushing their limits sometimes.
‘First Ironman, last Ironman (probably).’
Pool news to catch the eye of Harry and Meghan
They’re snugly settled in Montecito, California, in their £19.5 million mansion with its wine cellar, cinema, gym, spa, pool, tennis court, wood-fired stove, barbecue – and 13 (-and-a-half) bathrooms.
But here’s news which may just persuade Prince Harry and Meghan to spend a weekend on this side of the pond – at Soho Farmhouse, the Oxfordshire retreat where they stayed twice in the giddy days of 2017, and where Meghan held her hen weekend the following year.
It’s seeking permission to install a ‘teeny pool’ for ‘small children and under-16s’, after sensing that its more mature patrons, seeking relief from metropolitan stress, don’t necessarily want to be water-bombed or treated to hysterical shrieks as they try to relax poolside.
The proposed teeny pool provides ‘an obvious solution to the conflict’, says the Farmhouse pleadingly in its application to the local council. Just the place to park Archie and Lilibet when Megs and Harry pop over.
(Very) modern manners
Prince Andrew denied having first encountered Virginia Roberts at his favourite London nightspot, Tramp, in his calamitous Newsnight interview, insisting that he’d been at a Pizza Express restaurant in Woking on the day she claimed they’d met.
Now, the revamped private members’ club in St James’s has found a solution against possible confusion over who’s entered. It has installed a biometric facial recognition scanner.
Members face a camera, then a green tick appears on the attached screen, unlocking Tramp’s front door. No sweat!
Bank of The Beatles
The Beatles continue to make more money than most contemporary bands.
Accounts for the group’s Apple Corps report £4.7 million in pay for Sir Paul McCartney, 82, and Sir Ringo Starr, 84, and the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison.
The pay comprised £500,000 in dividends and £4.2 million for ‘promotional services and likeness rights’.
The firm’s turnover to January was a staggering £28.7 million, making a pre-tax profit of £6.6 million.
Spiritual song from Meghan’s guru
It’s all gone Pete Tong for Meghan’s spiritual ‘guru’ Deepak Chopra as the DJ has revealed to me they are planning a musical project.
Pete, whose wife is Ayurvedic medicine practitioner Carolina Tong, tells me: ‘We got introduced to Deepak a year ago, and he wants to do a musical collaboration, which I’ve been talking to him about and will start working on it soon.’
Speaking at the Jugad restaurant in Camden, north London, the DJ adds: ‘It’s going to be about how sound is healing and the power of sound.’