Step aside, Meghan Markle! Another American moves to Britain with a view to bagging a duke.
And this socialite has an ancestor who did just that.
Consuelo Vanderbilt, a scion of one of America’s most prominent families, has decided to move to London from her residence on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. This week it was announced that she had divorced her husband, Rafael Feldman.
“I love Eaton Square,” she tells me of her plans to live in Belgravia or Chelsea, west London. “That’s definitely an area I’m looking into.”
Consuelo, 44, whose ancestor was Consuelo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough, grew up in London and spent weekends with her kinsman, the Duke of Marlborough, at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire.
Consuelo Vanderbilt, a scion of one of America’s most prominent families, has decided to move to London from her residence on Manhattan’s Upper East Side
Step aside, Meghan Markle! Another American moves to Britain with a view to bagging a duke
When asked if she’s ready for romance, she says, “If the right person comes along… a duke sounds wonderful.” I have always been a person of character and soul, that is first and foremost.’
Consuelo runs a company, SohoMuse, where creatives can network, and is also on the board of the Vanderbilt Museum in New York.
She learned to bow before meeting Princess Diana when she was seven years old. “My mother played tennis with Diana and I got the honor of being the ball girl,” says Consuelo, who is also a singer.
‘I was a very gregarious and precocious child, and before we met Princess Diana we learned how to bow. We were told that you are not allowed to talk until you are spoken to – there is a whole protocol. My mother looks at me and says, “Consuelo, don’t even think about talking to her.”
‘I sat next to her and after a few minutes I couldn’t keep my mouth shut anymore. I turned to her and said, “You know I go to school with your niece.” She was so sweet and kind. She was just the sweetest.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING: JOANNA BELL
Actress Suki Waterhouse
In the TV series Daisy Jones & The Six, Suki Waterhouse plays a feminist rock star from the 1970s. Off-screen, Twilight and The Batman star Robert Pattinson’s long-term girlfriend enjoys a more familial role.
Suki, 31, is now an aunt after her artist brother, Charlie, 29, welcomed his first child. “Charlie just had a baby,” she says. “It’s no longer us being ‘the kids,’ but suddenly he has a kid.” The most amazing thing was that first day I met my little niece.”
Pattinson, 37, has said he ‘definitely’ wants children but fears they will think he’s strange: ‘He or she will probably look at me every day and think, ‘Why is this guy such a funny, quirky eccentric?’ ?” ‘
Lady Paris: I have bought a Scottish title
Made in Chelsea’s ‘Lady’ Paris Smith
When ‘Lady’ Paris Smith won Reality Personality of the Year last month, she attributed her win to “sticking to (her) morals” since joining the cast of Made in Chelsea in 2020.
The model, 25, has now admitted that her title, which she uses on social media, was bought for her as a birthday present by her friend and co-star Sebastian O’Reilly.
“I used to joke with Sebastian and say one day we’ll be Lord and Lady of the Manor,” she tells me at a London Fashion Week show where heiress Nicky Pietrzak’s Delulu London label made its debut.
‘On my 21st birthday he bought me a piece of land in Scotland, making me a lady.
“Titles are almost meaningless these days, but I was grateful to have them and to be able to differentiate myself from Paris Hilton.”
Comedian Patrick Kielty’s young sons struggled to adapt to the LA lifestyle when he and his wife, Cat Deeley, returned to Britain.
Kielty, whose boys are seven and five, says: ‘We swapped a four-bedroom house in Beverly Hills with a swimming pool for a three-bedroom flat with no garden in north London. There was a hotel down the road with a pool and I decided I would join that gym to take the boys swimming.
“The youngest guy, I brought him in, and he looks around and says, ‘Dad, who are these people in our pool?’ ‘
High-tech Cressie reveals her artistic ambitions for son Wilbur
Cressida Bonas was keen to put a virtual reality headset on the actress this week as she attended Zara Muse’s art show at the Quantus Gallery in Shoreditch, East London
Cressida Bonas was the girlfriend of annoying Prince Harry for two years, so it’s understandable that she would seek out alternate realities.
And this week the actress was keen to don a virtual reality headset as she attended Zara Muse’s art show at the Quantus Gallery in Shoreditch, East London.
Through the headset she could see an interactive 3D version of the exhibition. Cressida, 34, married to property investor Harry Wentworth-Stanley, tells me: ‘I love her work. I used to paint and draw a lot. My husband is a great painter, much better than me.’
Last November she gave birth to their first child, Wilbur.
‘He’s not painting yet, but he will be by Christmas. I look forward. I hope he goes into art.’
Unlikely to endear her to the #MeToo movement, Harry Potter star Miriam Margolyes has revealed she was touched by a fellow audience member at the Royal Opera House – and enjoyed it.
“I was at the opera in Covent Garden and suddenly I felt a hand on my thigh,” the 82-year-old actress recalls.
“It was the gentleman next to me, and it was exciting somehow. I’m gay, but somehow the immediacy of it and the danger of it because – and I’m ashamed to say this – his wife was on the other side of him. But it continued and it became even more flammable, so to speak.”
Tim Rice lashes out at ‘ridiculous’ wokies
Andrew Lloyd Webber recently suggested he shouldn’t have composed Evita these days for fear of being accused of cultural appropriation, but the show’s lyricist Sir Tim Rice refuses to pander to the ‘woke’ audience.
“I don’t see why you couldn’t do that again today,” says the three-time Oscar winner. “It’s ridiculous to suggest you can’t write about something.” Sir Tim, 78, adds that he is opposed to attempts to rework historic shows to suit modern sensibilities. “I don’t think people should attack a show that has already proven itself.
‘There is a great danger that people have to adjust things, so to speak. People need to be tolerant, and I’m not sure there’s much demand for tolerance right now.”
Dan and Strictly friend enjoy a cha-cha chat
Their chemistry was undeniable when they were partners on Strictly Come Dancing – and Dan Walker and Nadiya Bychkova have maintained their close bond
Their chemistry was undeniable when they were partners on Strictly Come Dancing – and Dan Walker and Nadiya Bychkova have maintained their close bond.
The news presenter, 46, who lives in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, with his wife Sarah and their three children, attended the launch of L’Atelier Robuchon restaurant in Mayfair with the Ukrainian professional dancer, 34.
“We are good friends and hang out together when we can,” says Nadiya.
The pair waltzed to fifth place on the hit BBC show in 2021.
Bychkova, the girlfriend of fellow Strictly pro Kai Widdrington, 28, is not included in any of this year’s couples.
Until Helena Bonham Carter split with her long-term boyfriend Tim Burton, she and the Hollywood film director lived in three joined houses in north London, two of which were decorated to their taste and a third for their children and live-in nanny.
Now the star of The King’s Speech appears to have found domestic happiness with art historian Rye Dag Holmboe, who is 22 years her junior. I saw the couple browsing the home furnishings department of Liberty, the West End store beloved by bohemians. Helena, 57, took no chances when examining the exhibits: she wore two pairs of glasses on her forehead.
No doubt Oscar Wilde, who described Liberty as ‘the artistic shopper’s chosen seaside resort’, would have agreed.
Cleric and former Gogglebox star Rev Kate Bottley is even shorter than Kylie Minogue, who appeared at a Radio 2 event in Leicester last weekend where she was hosting.
“I’ve met Kylie a few times,” she says.
‘I’m always surprised that I’m still smaller than her. I’m 6 feet tall; she is 6 feet tall.
‘The first time I met her, I bowed. This time I put on my super high heels.’
(Very) modern manners……
You’ll never guess how Nadiya Hussain, sweet-natured winner of The Great British Bake Off, likes to relax.
The broadcaster has revealed that she and her husband Abdal visit a ‘rage room’ where they let off steam with baseball bats for 30 minutes. “I’ve broken TVs, a toilet, computers, glass bottles,” says Nadiya, 38, of her recent outing. ‘It was a real liberation’
About her dazzling evening, she says: ‘Ten years ago we had regular ‘date nights’, but they were always dinners, and that got boring.’