A self-proclaimed “Domestic Goddess”, Lawson was rebranded a “habitual criminal” during the trial of her two former assistants in November 2013. In an email quoted during the case, her ex-husband, Charles Saatchi, nicknamed her “Higella” and alleged his wife “poisoned [her] child with drugs and trashed her life”. In response, amongst those who leapt to Lawson’s defence on Twitter were Tom Parker Bowles, Rosa Monckton and Piers Morgan. Though the image of Saatchi throttling Lawson at Scott’s in Mayfair is undoubtedly one of the most shocking published in 2013, this cookery writer and presenter’s last biscuit may have just been baked given American viewer’s distaste for drug abuse.
Category: CREATIVES
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The Hon. Nigella Lawson
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Noelle Reno
This innovative American firecracker has partnered with Zandra Rhodes and founded her first company whilst at university. Another of Reno’s ventures, Lulu’s Estate Jewellery, launched in October 2013, was backed by two former bankers and loaned jewellery to a membership base paying upwards of £500 per year. A girlfriend of Scot Young until he died in 2014 and an ex of Matthew Mellon, this model turned designer’s guiding force is Tolstoy and her most guilty pleasure is nicotine. She likes her martinis dirty and straight up. -
Russell Brand
Banned from South Africa and known for his “notoroious drug use, alcoholism and promiscuity”, this comedian is nothing but controversial. Brand has more followers than Stephen Fry on Twitter and signed a £1.8 million book deal with HarperCollins in 2008. He describes himself as being like an “S&M Willy Wonka”. -
Cindy Crawford
The “original supermodel” looks just as good in reality as she does in photographs and was born in DeKalb, Illinois. Her marriage to the actor Richard Gere was shortlived but a union with bar operator Rande Gerber has produced two children. Crawford has endorsed politicians as varied as Mitt Romney and Barrack Obama and made pizzas with One Direction’s Harry Styles. She has over 1.2 million followers on Twitter and from her base in Malibu oversees the Cindy Crawford Home collection. It grosses $250 million annually in retail sales. -
Lord Britten, OM, CH (better known as Benjamin Britten; 1913 – 1976)
This composer, conductor and pianist’s life revolved around alliteration: Britten’s siblings were Barbara, Beth and Bob and his professional and personal partner was Peter Pears; his Simple Symphony included the Boisterous Bourrée, the Playful Pizzicato, the Sentimental Sarabande and the Frolicsome Finale and his mother was convinced he’d be the “Fourth ‘B’ after Bach, Beethoven and Brahms”. A scallop shaped sculpture by Maggi Hambling CBE on the beach close to his Aldeburgh home, The Red House, was unveiled in his honour in 2003 and bears the following words from his opera Peter Grimes: “I hear those voices that will not be drowned”. -
Anton Lesser
He’s played everyone from Robin Carrow in BBC Radio 4’s Ambridge Extra to Dr Karl Crabb in BBC One’s Ripper Street. “One of Britain’s leading classical actors”, Birmingham born Lesser has also starred in Game of Thrones, Miss Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean. His distinct accent is indeed one of great gravitas. -
Lady Camilla Bloch (born Lady Camilla Bingham)
Hampstead based and a barrister by profession, Oxford educated Lady Bloch is the daughter of suspected murderer Lord Lucan. Asked how she’d describe her father to her son, Bloch told The Scotsman: “I’ll tell Cameron that his grandfather was tall, dark and handsome – a professional gambler who loved powerboating and the Cresta Run in St Moritz”. Of her father himself, she told The Mail on Sunday: “He has never been able to defend himself and the evidence was not conclusive. It was circumstantial”. -
Terry Deary
Best known for his Horrible Histories series, Deary has sold over 25 million books in over 40 languages but was described by David Starkey as a “parasite”. This Sunderland born butcher’s son is the tenth most borrowed author in British libraries yet views historians as “seedy and devious”. Schools, he has commented, have “no relevance in the 21st century” and libraries, themselves, “have been around too long”. A road runner in his spare time, in October 2013 Deary told Radio 4’s Saturday Live: “I didn’t set out to do anything. I was commissioned. I am a hack”. -
Dame Norma Major DBE
Her husband may have been minor as Prime Minister but she is definitely a star. She put up with John Major’s dalliances with Edwina Currie and “kept a low profile” whilst her husband ran the country. Norma Major is thought of as “strong willed” and was rightly made a Dame Commander of the British Empire in her own right. -
Peter Czernin
A property heir turned film director. Czernin is a scion of the de Walden £2.4 billion property dynasty but is better known as the producer of In Brgues and Piccadilly Jim. A friend of David Cameron, Czernin took over Avington Park, his family’s ancestral seat, in October 2013 and plainly was the perfect choice to adapt Laura Wade’s Posh for the screen. He makes Julian Fellowes look positively common.