Better late than never, I suppose… Prince Andrew’s controversial business partner has been axed from a firm they set up together after his involvement became public.
The Duke of York’s business links with disgraced financier Harry Keogh became known only last month after the pair were revealed to be working together on a management consultancy business called Lincelles.
Keogh left the Queen’s bank Coutts in 2018 after he was accused of touching a female colleague inappropriately and boasting about his sexual exploits. He reportedly signed a non-disclosure agreement which meant he was unable to comment on the allegations.
But just over a week after their business relationship was made public, Keogh is no longer listed with Andrew as a person of significant control over the business.
The Duke of York’s (left) business links with disgraced financier Harry Keogh (right) became known only last month after the pair were revealed to be working together on a management consultancy business called Lincelles
The register on Companies House has been updated to show that he was appointed to this position on June 26 last year when the company was set up and also stepped down the same day. This change was recorded on Wednesday.
Lincelles is understood to be a vehicle for Prince Andrew’s family investments, and is named after the 18th-century battle against the French in which the British were commanded by the Duke of York. But it became mired in controversy as soon as Keogh’s involvement was made public.
Andrew has faced searching questions over his choice of business partners after his links to the late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were exposed.
Keogh was described as a ‘friend and adviser’ to the prince and is said to have acted as the ‘duke’s private banker for years’. He was also a guest at Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank’s wedding in 2018.
A source close to the Duke tells me: ‘The company has never been operational and the latest paperwork filing is part of the preparation for the closing down of the entire structure, which is expected to be completed shortly.’
Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes admits that holidays with his wife, Emma, a lady-in-waiting to Princess Michael of Kent, involve a lot of bag carrying.
‘I travel light compared with my wife, who travels as if the Empress of Russia were making a world tour,’ Lord Fellowes whispers. Surely, they can take a footman or two with them?
Freddie’s Foxy lady Tanya moves in…
Freddie Fox stars in tomorrow night’s hotly anticipated BBC drama The Pursuit Of Love, but off screen he appears to have found it.
I hear the 32-year-old son of The Day Of The Jackal star Edward Fox is now sharing his London home with his girlfriend, Tanya Reynolds, 29, an actress best known for her role in Netflix hit Sex Education.
Freddie Fox (left) stars in tomorrow night’s hotly anticipated BBC drama The Pursuit Of Love, but off screen he appears to have found it. Centre, Tanya Reynolds. Right, Charles Dance
‘They are totally smitten,’ a Fox family friend tells me. ‘Their love really blossomed during lockdown.’
The actor met Tanya when he played her on-screen lover in the 2019 film, Fanny Lye Deliver’d.
BBC Radio 4 presenter Fi Glover fears she may no longer recognise some of her colleagues who have taken advantage of working from home to undergo cosmetic surgery.
‘It’ll be funny going back to the office to reconvene with a bunch of people who’ve transformed themselves over the past 12 months,’ she says. ‘Prepare to look convincing when you say, “Wow, you look so well!” — and prepare for the fact that they can no longer show any kind of emotion in response.’
The smart set’s talking about a new Dench in town
Asked last year if she planned to retire, Dame Judi Dench scolded an interviewer: ‘Don’t use that word. Not in this house. Not here. Wash your mouth out!’
Should the Oscar winner ever decide to exit, stage left, there is, however, another Dench waiting in the wings. I can reveal that her dashing great-nephew Oliver Dench, pictured, is to star in period drama Hotel Portofino, which producers hope will rival Downton.
Oliver (pictured), 27, will play artist Lucian in the drama, set in Italy in the 1920s
Asked last year if she planned to retire, Dame Judi Dench (pictured) scolded an interviewer: ‘Don’t use that word. Not in this house. Not here. Wash your mouth out!’
Oliver, 27, will play artist Lucian in the drama, set in Italy in the 1920s.
He’s currently filming it with co-stars Anna Chancellor and Natascha McElhone. Not short of admiration for his celebrated relation, Oliver says: ‘I saw her in The Winter’s Tale in London.
‘When Judi walked on stage, it was like she had been written into the play. That’s what I’ve found inspiring about her.’
Encouraging kids’ confidence is a good thing, but Strictly judge Motsi Mabuse fears she and dancer husband Evgenij Voznyuk may have gone overboard with their daughter.
‘She’s only two-and-a-half, but we’ve got our affirmations that we do together every day,’ she says of the girl, whose name she’s never revealed.
‘Although one day she woke up and was like, “Oh, Mummy — I’m so beautiful.” My husband and I were like, “Oops — we may have overdone it.” ’
Make-up artist to the stars Charlotte Tilbury, who built a billion-pound beauty empire, suffers from an embarrassment of riches.
‘I have too many clothes because I’m a bit of a hoarder,’ she says. ‘The other day I picked something up and, I’m pleased to say, I could still squeeze myself into it — but it had a dry cleaner’s tag from the 1990s. It was hilarious.’
Tilbury, whose clients include Cara Delevingne and Amal Clooney, adds: ‘My father-in-law went, “Darling, I counted all your dresses.
‘You have 130 frocks on that rail — of black dresses alone!”’
Strictly Emma just can’t wait to get dancing again
With little more than a week to go until we can revel indoors again, Strictly star Emma Weymouth is getting ready to party.
Emma, 35, shared this photograph of herself posing in a glittering £550 gold mini-dress
The Marchioness of Bath, to give her full title, has become the latest trendsetter to waltz over to Annie’s Ibiza, a boutique in London’s Carnaby Street frequented by the likes of Kate Moss, Rita Ora and Daisy Lowe.
Emma, 35, shared this photograph of herself posing in a glittering £550 gold mini-dress. ‘After numerous previous appointments were cancelled due to recurring lockdowns, I could hardly drag myself away,’ says Emma, who became the first member of the aristocracy to take part in the BBC’s Strictly.
Her husband, Ceawlin Thynn, Marquess of Bath, owns the Longleat estate in Wiltshire.
Cobbler puts the boot into Harry and Meghan’s plans
Prince Harry and Meghan’s plans for world domination have hit a roadblock.
The ambitious couple are trying to trademark the name of their company Archewell across the globe. They could sell everything from Archewell clothing to magazines and TV programmes.
However, two countries so far, New Zealand and India, have rejected their trademark application, which was made under the name of the company Cobblestone Lane.
India has issued a ‘total provisional refusal of protection’ because the name Arche is already taken by a footwear company. New Zealand has issued a partial provisional refusal of protection as the wording of the application is ‘unduly broad’.
HM follows Victoria to grieve at Balmoral
Their grief separated by more than a century, the Queen is set to follow in her great-great-grandmother’s footsteps, to Balmoral to reflect on the loss of her husband.
I hear the monarch is to beat a retreat later this month to Craigowan Lodge — far from the tourists who flock to the main castle and gardens.
She could be joined by her niece, Lady Sarah Chatto, who sometimes stays with her at the seven-bedroom stone house. Queen Victoria mourned the loss of her husband, Prince Albert, by retreating to Balmoral.
It would be the first time any member of the Royal Family has dared venture north of the border since Nicola Sturgeon unsuccessfully twice tried to dissuade the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge from visiting Scotland during their train tour last December, claiming it was not ‘essential’ during the pandemic.
Jade’s little runaround has bags of Vroom!
She married the co-founder of Superdry Julian Dunkerton, and lives in a £50 million mansion in the Cotswolds.
Clothing designer Jade Holland Cooper(pictured) has acquired perhaps the ultimate status symbol: a personalised number plate
The 34-year-old from Suffolk has had her initials put on her £240,000 Ferrari F12Berlinetta. It is, she insists, a symbol of ‘women empowerment’
But now clothing designer Jade Holland Cooper has acquired perhaps the ultimate status symbol: a personalised number plate.
The 34-year-old from Suffolk has had her initials put on her £240,000 Ferrari F12Berlinetta. It is, she insists, a symbol of ‘women empowerment’.
As if the car wasn’t enough to provoke jealousy, she shared this snap of her £15,000 Hermes Birkin bag on the boot. The bags are so coveted there’s a waiting list that lasts for years.
Swinging Sixties snapper Terry O’Neill, who was once married to Hollywood star Faye Dunaway, has left more than £3.2 million to his widow in his will.
Probate documents reveal that the photographer, who died in 2019 aged 81, left his London home and the income from the rest of his estate to Laraine Ashton-O’Neill, until her death or remarriage.
After that, the rest will be shared by his three children and Laraine’s son, Claude.
(Very) Modern Manners
Face coverings are still compulsory in church, but one couple have found a fun way to comply with the diktat at their wedding this month.
Broadcaster and charity campaigner Marjorie Wallace, 78, former confidante of the late Earl of Snowdon, and television shopping tycoon John Mills, 83, have asked the 30 guests at their ceremony in Pond Square Chapel in London’s Highgate to wear flamboyant Venetian masks. ‘The wedding’s going to have a Venetian masquerade theme,’ one of their friends tells me. ‘It’s going to be quite some carnival.’
Wallace, whose first husband was psychoanalyst Count Andrzej Skarbek, will be given away by her son Sacha Skarbek, who co-wrote James Blunt’s hit You’re Beautiful. Jesus Of Nazareth star Robert Powell will read a poem. Wallace tells me: ‘We are in our last flush of youth.’