Alert – EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: TV chef Gizzi Erskine says sexist verbal abuse from male colleagues made her quit restaurants

Mystery has shrouded why aristocratic TV chef Gizzi Erskine pulled down the shutters on the trendy seafront cafe she ran with former Libertines frontman Carl Barat, 45, last December — only a year after it opened.

But now the Cook Yourself Thin author, whose late father was the 2nd Baron Erskine of Rerrick, has revealed that she was brought to boiling point in all her business ventures, by what she alleges was a torrent of sexist verbal abuse from her male colleagues.

‘Every business partner that I’ve had has pretty much been a male and every single time I’ve been told off for being too passionate. I had a chef that I worked with call me a megalomaniac which I was like, ‘Am I that person?’ I was like, that’s the absolute epitome of egotist and I don’t want to ever be perceived as that.

‘I wanted out after that. That… is about 90 per cent of why I pulled out of my businesses.’ She adds: ‘That’s where cancel culture has taken us now — where you can whip away everyone’s absolute passion, love and joy for what they do by framing that person that way.

‘I’ve been called hysterical, witch and all the derogatory words to call a female.’

Gizzi’s enterprises included a venue at Mare Street Market in London in 2018 with Barworks founder Marc Francis-Baum which fizzled out the same year.

Much fanfare surrounded the opening of the Love Cafe or ‘sandwich bar on steroids’ in Margate in 2021, which she co-founded with Barat. But the following year, Ms Erskine quit as executive chef, explaining that it was evolving into something that she ‘wasn’t entirely happy with’.

Then, the pizza delivery business Giz’N’Green founded with rapper Professor Green also went cold.

Ms Erskine now plans to focus on writing her memoir. She tells the We Recover Loudly podcast.: ‘My rock bottom was losing businesses, having invested all of my personal money. I’m definitely not going to go into the restaurant business anytime soon.’

A spokesman for Barat says: ‘Everything was amicable with Carl and Gizzi.’

Doctor Who’s Time travails 

Doctor Who star Jodie Whittaker has turned from time travel to serving it as she plays an imprisoned mother of three sharing a cell with a murderer and a heroin addict.

So, what is her secret for coping with such a demanding role in the second series of the BBC prison drama, Time?

‘Wine. I find it very hard,’ she tells me at a BFI screening in London. Jodie, who is married to Zero Dark Thirty star Christian Contreras, explains: ‘I need a lot of monologuing at the end of most days to get everything out.

‘If you go through a scene and you’re crying your eyes out, we go through that.’

She adds: ‘I am an absolute nightmare to live with.’

Jaime weds her leading man in Sicily 

While this picture may look like a scene from a romantic movie, actress Jamie Winstone has indeed married her real-life Prince Charming — DJ James Suckling.

The couple exchanged vows in a star-studded ceremony — dubbed the wedding of the year — in Sicily.

More than 250 guests — including Jaime’s father, Hollywood hardman Ray Winstone, and actress Sheridan Smith — attended the nuptials.

Jaime, 38, could be seen in her white embroidered bridal dress sitting on the lap of her new husband at their reception.

The newlyweds, who got engaged at Glastonbury last year, have a son, Raymond, aged five.

Football Barbie’s striking new look 

If you thought Barbie-mania had been put to bed, think again as the iconic franchise has just introduced a new model in the form of no-nonsense Ted Lasso football boss Rebecca Welton, played by Hannah Waddingham.

The doll, which sells for £51, bears an uncanny resemblance to Waddingham’s character, owner of the fictional AFC Richmond.

Welton’s Barbie can be seen sporting the same chic champagne blouse as she does in the sitcom, with tailored pants and black pumps.

Mission Impossible star’s four-letter outburst stuns fans 

A potty-mouthed Simon Pegg left a crowd stunned at the London Literary Festival after telling off a female fan for trying to coax him into breaching rules for the Hollywood actors strike.

Hosting a Q&A for actor Nick Frost’s new book A Slice Of Fried Gold: Taste My Memories, at the Royal Festival Hall, The Mission Impossible star, 53, issued a stern warning and said: ‘Due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike Nick won’t be able to answer any questions regarding his film and television work.’

Then, in response to a woman calling out ‘Hot Fuzz 2!’ in reference to the longed-for sequel to Pegg and Frost’s 2007 hit comedy action film Hot Fuzz, he responded: ‘F*** you! What did I just say?’

A member of the audience tells me: ‘It was a bit uncalled for. We know he has to take the strikes seriously, but there was no need for him to use such an expletive at that poor fan.’

I hear that congratulations are in order for keen equestrian Lady Tatiana Mountbatten, who has given birth to a baby girl named Elodie.

‘One month of motherhood and what a month it’s been,’ says Lady Tatiana, the daughter of King Charles’s cousin the Marquess of Milford Haven. ‘Elodie arrived on September 20 and it’s already going far too quickly,’ she adds.

Lady Tatiana’s new arrival is her first child with her banker husband Alick Dru.

Spare a thought for comedian Omid Djalili, who is courageously heading on stage in Londonderry Tuesday night. 

His performance will come only a few days after he was forced to cancel a gig due to personal security threats he received over the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Djalili, 58, born in London to Iranian parents, had been due to appear in Market Drayton, Shropshire. 

‘Having lived in Northern Ireland during The Troubles, I never thought I’d ever say, ‘I’m going to Northern Ireland for gigs because it’s much safer’, but here we are,’ says Djalili.