EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Eddie Izzard struggles to find romance as a trans woman

Eddie Izzard announced in 2020 that she wanted ‘to be based in girl mode from now on’ and should be referred to using the pronouns ‘she’ and ‘her’.

Now, the comedian admits that finding love is a struggle.

‘I would like to start dating, but it’s complicated with me being a trans woman,’ Izzard tells me at a red carpet event at London’s BFI IMAX Waterloo.

‘It’s going to have to be a very confident and strong-minded woman who has a relationship with me.’

The wannabe Labour MP, 60 — who came dressed in a floral frock and high heels — was previously in a long-term relationship with singer, director and producer Sarah Townsend.

They met at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1989 and Townsend directed the 2009 documentary Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story.

Now Her Majesty lets out a royal home on Airbnb

Know as a cheap and cheerful way for holidaymakers to stay in enviable locations, Airbnb has now won the royal seal of approval.

I can reveal that the Queen is advertising a property on her private Sandringham estate for short-term lets on the American home rentals website.

‘I never thought I could get a place next to the royals,’ says one astonished Airbnb user. Courtiers are already joking that the property should be known as ‘Heirbnb’.

The property on the website was formerly the home of the Queen’s head gardener at the Norfolk estate, where the royals spend Christmas. The house includes furniture and art works owned by the Royal Family.

Airbnb describes it as a ‘charming hideaway, owned by HM The Queen, nestled within the heart of her much-loved Sandringham Estate country retreat and the closest estate property to Sandringham House itself’.

It adds: ‘The gardens are a sheer delight and provide a superb setting for this idyllic house.

‘Garden House offers charming and relaxed accommodation for eight guests set over two floors. Furnished eclectically from the Royal Collection, all the furniture and pictures were once housed in a royal residence.’

Guests can enjoy plenty of outdoor space. ‘As well as the formal walled garden with its wonderfully stocked beds and borders in which the property sits, there is a more informal garden where you can relax in and children and dogs are safe to run and play.’

And it won’t cost a king’s ransom. Prices vary, but the house can be rented for £354 per night next February, for a minimum of three nights.

She’s a judge on The Great British Bake Off, but Prue Leith still has a few friends brave enough to invite her to dinner. ‘A really smart dinner party I went to was a disaster,’ reveals Leith, 82. ‘The woman was showing off because I was there. She must have been working for days, with the result that she was bad-tempered and her husband wasn’t speaking to her.’ Leith remarks: ‘If you don’t enjoy it, get someone else to cook for you.’ 

How Bowie inspired Daphne as an absolute beginner

Heiress Daphne Guinness, who made her mark in the fashion world with her outlandish taste in clothes, wants to be remembered for her music.

And she has David Bowie to thank for encouraging her singing career.

‘He was a great friend and he essentially god-fathered my first album in the studio,’ she tells me at the London premiere of Moonage Daydream, a new film about Bowie. 

‘I wouldn’t have my career if it wasn’t for him.’

Guinness, 54, who wore towering, sequinned platform boots, without heels, to the event, adds that Bowie, who died of cancer in 2016 at 69, encouraged her flamboyant style.

Why Meghan’s confessor is taking a long break…

Her revealing interview with the Duchess of Sussex for The Cut magazine made headlines around the world, so American journalist Allison P. Davis might be expected to be enjoying all the attention.

Instead, she’s surprised admirers by announcing that she’s gone on a long holiday. ‘For the first time in… I’m going on extended vacation,’ Davis tells her social media followers. Intriguingly, she adds that she’ll be ‘out of pocket’ and ‘living in the moment’.

Perhaps quizzing Meghan proved more taxing than she anticipated, but a colleague insists that Davis is merely taking annual leave.

James Corden, so it has been asserted, was ‘offered the earth’ to remain in Los Angeles — only to astound Hollywood chums by announcing that, next spring, he will leave his £7million-a-year role as presenter of The Late Late Show. But if the Gavin & Stacey star, 44, does head back to Britain, he’s unlikely to struggle with the cost of living, judging by accounts just filed for the production company Fulwell 73 Productions, of which he is a partner. These disclose that its turnover for the past three years amounts to more than £100million — £25million in 2019, £32million in 2020 and no less than £48.4million last year. 

Anneka’s waxwork challenge

Anneka Rice is making a TV comeback with a reboot of the hit Nineties reality series Challenge Anneka.

But the 63-year-old presenter laments that it may be too late for her to stage a dramatic return to one of London’s most popular tourist attractions.

‘My Madame Tussauds waxwork was melted down to create Kim Kardashian’s left buttock,’ she jokes.

‘My life is a list of discarded items. If they ask me to return my Rear Of The Year trophy, I’m going to live in a tree…’