EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Photographer David Bailey’s son Sascha says he registered as transgender in Japan – ‘I lost it completely and thought I wanted to be female’

David Bailey enjoyed marriages to beautiful women, including film star Catherine Deneuve and model Marie Helvin.

But the celebrated photographer’s son, Sascha Bailey, tells me he was so unhappy during his own marriage that he began the formal process of becoming a wife “as an escape from the trauma.”

Last year I announced that Sascha, 29, an art curator, had “fled” Tokyo after the collapse of his 10-year marriage to Japanese lawyer Mimi Nishikawa, who is 10 years his senior.

As I revealed last month, the now estranged couple lived together in Tokyo until October 2022.

Now he tells me, “I ended up becoming trans before I left Japan. Before I left, I completely lost it and thought I wanted to be a woman.

“Actually, I am officially transgender, according to the Japanese government.”

Sascha – whose mother is Bailey’s fourth wife, Catherine Dyer – explains: ‘It was an escape from the trauma.

‘I thought I had a second personality called ‘Sue’ who was female. ‘She’ (Sue) protected me.’

Although he registered as transgender in Japan, he did not undergo menopause medication or surgery. And he is no longer considering changing gender.

“I didn’t do anything, not even hormones,” he confirms, adding, “But I was prescribed them, I still have the doctor’s notes and the (prescription) box.”

Sascha is now dating Lucy Brown, a former media assistant at Canadian media platform Rebel News who later worked for far-right activist Tommy Robinson. She has since split from Robinson.

Lucy told me last year that Sascha, who she befriended online before he left Japan, was “very lost,” “almost shocked” and “almost afraid” of Mimi upon his return.

Mimi did not respond to my request for comment.

No-show for mediocre soprano star De Nise

More turbulence in Danielle de Niese’s career. I hear the soprano has withdrawn from La Boheme at the Royal Opera House this month and next “while she recovers from a recent illness.”

Last summer she withdrew from a production of Poulenc’s Dialogue Des Carmelites, which was staged at Glyndebourne, the Sussex opera house where her husband, Gus Christie, is executive chairman.

It later emerged that de Niese, 44, had starred in a new West End production of Aspects Of Love, the hit musical written by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Gus insisted: ‘Danni will be back at Glyndebourne next season this season.’

Let’s hope.

How action man Statham gave me the silent treatment

Hollywood hardman Jason Statham’s action films have generated billions in box office revenue since he first appeared in Guy Ritchie’s films more than two decades ago, surpassing British stars such as Idris Elba and even James Bond star Daniel Craig. But he clearly doesn’t want to shout about it.

When I tried to speak to him at the London premiere of his latest film, The Beekeeper, a colleague told me that the 56-year-old Statham was “in a vocal lull.”

It’s clear he’s the strong but silent type.

Playing drug boss takes its toll on Sofia

Sofia Vergara suffers for her art. The 51-year-old actress, who became the highest-paid woman on American television when she earned $19 million for starring in the sitcom Modern Family, has chronic back pain after playing drug lord Griselda Blanco in an upcoming Netflix drama.

“I changed my position, which I thought was a brilliant idea, until in the third month I tried to get out of bed and got stuck,” she tells me at a VIP screening of Griselda at the Mayfair Hotel in London.” She adds: ‘They had to inject me because my back was giving out. The doctor said, “You’re crazy, you can’t do this at 50.” But it was worth it.’

Growing up under a dictatorship, her husband was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis just seven years after their marriage – and her art was often rejected, leaving the family broke and desperate.

But the extent of Paula Rego’s triumph over adversity is now being revealed by the publication of her will, 18 months after her death at the age of 87. It reveals that Portuguese-born Rego left £42 million – exactly the amount left by Lucian Freud, once her mentor. at the Slade School of Fine Arts.

The National Gallery’s first-ever artist-in-residence, Rego, who was made a Dame in 2010, worked in her studio six days a week, with opera for lunch and Frank Sinatra or Portuguese fado afterward, ending the day with a glass of champagne.

She left everything to her three children, Caroline, Victoria and Nicholas – unlike Freud who left nothing to three of his recognized descendants aged fourteen.

Naomi Campbell, who once declared that she made the term “anger management” famous, now prides herself on channeling her inner peace.

The notoriously hot-tempered supermodel, 53, showed off her flexibility when she did a shoulder stand during a women-only yoga class at the £300-a-month FitnGlam gym in Dubai.

Campbell, who has two children, says it’s her “happy place.”

Rest was in short supply when the late Lord Glenconner arrived on the scene, whether throwing a tantrum or reaching into his trousers to tear off part of his paper underpants and eat the resulting fragment.

But soon there will be a serene new space on St. Lucia, where Glenconner departed from Mustique, the Caribbean island where he lured Princess Margaret, Sir Mick Jagger and countless Guinnesses. Michael Jacques, 67, a Londoner of St. Lucian descent, tells me he is building a chapel on land that became the subject of fierce debate between him and the Scottish colleague.

The chapel, Jacques adds, is “to celebrate good over evil – a thanksgiving to Jesus for giving me the strength to stop Lord Glenconner from taking it from me.”