His quest for a wife secured him national attention when he emphasised that he was looking for a ‘good breeder’ decades younger than him, having explained that when ‘you want a new car, you get a new car, not some old banger’.
But I can disclose that, aged 79, Sir Benjamin Slade has accepted that he will never sire a lad to inherit his baronetcy, created for his great-great-great grandfather in 1831, and Maunsel House, the family seat in Somerset, and its 1,300-acre estate.
Accordingly, he’s now thrashing out a deal which will see Maunsel leased for the next 40 years.
The incomer won’t be a private individual but a corporate entity. ‘I’ve got a deal with a hotel group.
They’re very upmarket,’ Sir Benjy assures me, adding that he’s intent on securing a final agreement which allows him to use Maunsel ‘three or four times a year’, even though he’ll be paying for the privilege whenever he does so.
He refrains from naming the hotel group, though it’s probably a British one, given that he’s previously summarised Russians as ‘dishonest’, Chinese as ‘impossible’ and Arabs ‘a bloody nightmare’, as well as making it clear that he won’t do business ‘with any country which has green in [its] flag’.
That does, of course, leave open the possibility of a newcomer from the USA, a country with which Sir Benjy, who lives in a farmhouse on the estate, has numerous connections.
Sir Benjamin Slade has accepted that he will never sire a lad to inherit his baronetcy
Sir Benjamin is now thrashing out a deal which will see Maunsel leased for the next 40 years
Inside Sir Benjamin’s 1,300-acre house in Somerset, with a huge master bedroom
He is intent on securing a final agreement which allows him to use Maunsel ‘three or four times a year’
These emerged in 2005 when he embarked on a proposed reality TV show which would have seen the remains of his 12th century ancestor William Atte Slade exhumed and compared with DNA from thousands of would-be Slade heirs from around the world.
By then, Sir Benjy’s 14-year childless marriage to Pauline Myburgh was long over. So, too, was a six-year romance with Fiona Aitken – now Countess of Carnarvon.
Sir Ben’s most recent love affair was with an American, Sahara Sunday Spain. In 2020, she bore him a child – who, alas for her prospects as Sir Benjamin’s heir, was a girl, Violet.
Perhaps one day she’ll check into the hotel alongside him?
Soprano’s secret romance
Danielle De Niese’s life has been almost as dramatic as some of the operas she stars in, ever since she won a talent contest aged nine in Melbourne, Australia, before moving to Los Angeles, where she won an Emmy award while still only 19.
The soprano, 46, has, though, revealed that she didn’t want to tempt fate after falling in love with Gus Christie, 61, executive chairman of Glyndebourne opera house in East Sussex.
They followed in the footsteps of Gus’s grandfather John Christie, the founder of Glyndebourne, who had married the soprano Audrey Mildmay 70 years earlier.
‘We became a couple, and we were very quiet about it because there’s a very storied, fabled origin story about Glyndebourne about John marrying this soprano,’ the singer says.
‘So when Gus and I were in our early courtship days, we didn’t tell anybody because I didn’t want to get over-excited.’
Cinderella star’s slippery moment
A glass slipper is pivotal to the fairy tale Cinderella, yet it proved more of a sore point for Lily James, who played the leading role in Disney’s 2015 film version.
The Downton Abbey and Mamma Mia 2 star, 36, reveals that she tried to make the wishes of a friend’s niece come true by video-calling her while wearing a Cinderella costume and the Jimmy Choo diamond-encrusted stilettos made specifically for the film.
‘This little girl lit up,’ Lily recalls. ‘Then I said, ‘Look, I’m going to put it on’.’
To her horror, the Surrey-born star found it a tight squeeze. She reveals: ‘I’d been dancing all night at [London club] Koko, and my feet were swollen. I couldn’t get the shoe on…’
Lily James, who played the leading role in Disney’s 2015 film version of Cinderella
Forget sun tans – Lila chills in an electric face mask
Spare a thought for the model Lila Moss, who feels the need to use cumbersome beauty treatments even while on holiday.
The 22-year-old daughter of Kate Moss and magazine editor Jefferson Hack used a black LED face mask while reading on Formentera, the Spanish island.
The anti-ageing light therapy device is said to help improve skin tone. Lila is on a break with her friend Lady Lola Bute, 26, daughter of the late 7th Marquess of Bute, aka racing driver Johnny Dumfries.
Lila, who is a type 1 diabetic, could also be seen wearing a glucose monitor in the snap. Earlier this year, she fronted the campaign for Mattel’s first diabetic Barbie.
Lila is on a break with her friend Lady Lola Bute, 26, daughter of the late 7th Marquess of Bute
Lila, who is a type 1 diabetic, could also be seen wearing a glucose monitor in the snap
Things are looking up for Victoria Cipriani. Amid her acrimonious divorce from former England rugby star Danny Cipriani, she has announced she’s now a certified neuroscience practitioner.
‘I didn’t get here through manifesting,’ declares Victoria, 43. ‘I got here through pain, practice, and a relentless need to understand myself.’
Veteran actress Anne Reid, who recently played Queen Elizabeth in the play By Royal Appointment, recalls the disastrous time she performed in front of the late monarch and forgot her lines.
The 90-year-old says: ‘On one occasion at Buckingham Palace, I was performing a scene from Romeo and Juliet.
I was playing the nurse and was terrified and ‘dried’ in the middle of my speech, so I ended up waffling and making rather a lot up.
‘Afterwards, the Queen said to me, ‘You had a lot to say, didn’t you?’ I replied, ‘Yes, too much’.
No flies on Her late Majesty!
