He would appear to enjoy pretty well everything a man of mature years – very mature years – could dream of, including his family seat, Firle Place, in East Sussex, a stately pile of such magnificence that it’s featured in numerous films, including the 2020 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma.
There is also the small matter of 7,000 surrounding acres, plus a village and, most splendidly of all, a wife some 35 years younger than him, with whom he has a teenage son.
But for the past year or so life hasn’t been all peaches and cream for Viscount Gage, 91, some 16 years after marrying Alexandra Murray Templeton, who was then already pregnant – a detail which, perhaps inevitably, earned Nicky Gage the soubriquet ‘the virile viscount’.
The couple have, in fact, been through an ordeal which would fray the nerves of anyone, old or young. I can disclose that they’ve been plagued by a 30-year-old female stalker, Danielle Millis, who, to the relief of friends, has now been made the subject of an interim court order.
Viscount Gage, 91, and his wife Alexandra, who is 35 years his junior, at an event at Claridge’s in 2014
This prohibits Millis from contacting either of them – or the viscount’s heir Henry, 50, the elder of his two sons by his first marriage to Lady Diana Beatty, or their friends, TV producer Camilla Campbell and her husband Julian Kingsland.
The order, which bans all forms of communication ‘in person, calls, letters, emails, messages, social media’, and stipulates that Millis is not to make any ‘vexatious complaints, allegations, publications or threats’, also forbids her from contacting those working for the Gages anywhere on their estate, which has been in the family for 500 years.
The viscount and his wife decline to comment, but a friend, acknowledging that it’s been ‘a very difficult time’, expresses the hope that the order ‘gives them the protection they need’.
Fortunately, Nicky Gage, whose enviable art collection includes works by Rubens, Gainsborough and Van Dyke, is a philosophical chap.
‘Sadly, the sexual revolution of the 1960s passed me by,’ he noted in his memoir. ‘I was either sitting on my tractor looking after sheep or occasionally visiting my parents, whose butler disapproved of my agricultural attire.’
But in 2004 he was named one of the country’s most eligible bachelors by Tatler magazine, moving him to reflect: ‘This is the age of the older man I suppose.’
Five years later, just before marrying Alexandra, he went further. ‘When I was young and, hopefully, good-looking, I never had a girlfriend. Now I’m old and hoary, I do. I’m much better with women than I used to be.’
Dating site: Strictly no Shirley
As head judge on Strictly Come Dancing, Shirley Ballas might have expected to waltz on to celebrity dating site Raya after splitting up with fiance Danny Taylor. Not so.
‘I tried Raya, but they wouldn’t accept me,’ wails the former ballroom dancing champion, 65. ‘How rude.’ She adds: ‘I’m not in an hurry to date, though. I’ve got my son, my grandson and Strictly is about to start.’
Earlier this year, Cold Feet star John Thomson lamented: ‘Raya won’t have me. I’m on a waiting list. I’ve got 15 referrals and they still won’t have me.’
Cara Delevingne said she ‘got her power back’ after quitting drugs and booze, and sobriety has clearly given her bank balance a boost.
I can reveal that the model and actress’s company, Cara & Co Ltd, has seen its assets rocket by almost £3 million to £44 million in 12 months.
Newly published accounts disclose that the rise was driven by shrewd stock market-listed investments which increased from £19.4 million to £22.3 million. She also has £850,000 in unnamed artworks.
Paperwork covering 2024 also stresses that the £44 million in accumulated earnings kept in the company do not include dividends which she has paid to herself as the owner of the company. Sadly, for the curious, the amount Cara, 33, paid herself is omitted.
Rochelle is rocked by daughter being bullied
Rochelle Hulmes, who was in girl group the Saturdays, revealed that her 12-year-old daughter has been bullied at school
As a successful pop singer turned television presenter, Rochelle Humes enjoys an enviable life at her £3 million home in north London with her husband, former JLS singer Marvin Humes, and their three children.
Don’t presume, though, that they are immune from the same family dramas as anyone else. Indeed, Rochelle, 36, has revealed that the couple’s 12-year-old daughter, Alaia-May, has been bullied at school.
‘It’s an awful thing,’ the singer says. ‘My eldest is 12 – it’s that tricky age when she’s going into the second year of secondary school and I’ve really noticed the dynamics and the changes and how girls are to each other and I go, “Oh, my God, if I could shield her from anything in life.” It brings out this lioness in you.’
Speaking on the Ladies Who Launch podcast, she adds: ‘I wasn’t a victim of bullying, but my daughter is definitely going through a touch of that at the minute and it’s so difficult and so hard to watch, but also knowing how to parent through it.’
Fast & Furious star Jason Statham has discovered that driving in the London of Labour mayor Sir Sadiq Khan is a different cup of tea.
‘Jason was supposed to come to my book launch in Mayfair but he was stuck in traffic,’ says his friend, the photographer Steve Shaw, who has published a limited-edition book, Treats! Bares It All. ‘It took him three hours in the car and he didn’t make it. He was slow and furious.
‘It was tough. I don’t think he has the patience for that.’
The launch party was during the Tube strike last week when Statham’s wife, the model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, was away.
‘He had to go [back],’ Shaw explains. ‘He couldn’t get a babysitter.’
This must be the biggest house price cut in Sir Keir Starmer’s Britain: the owners of Ripley Castle, on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales, have slashed its asking price in half.
Sir Thomas and Lady Ingilby put the castle, which has been owned by their family for more than 700 years, on the market for £15 million in January but it failed to sell and they are now seeking half as much. ‘In the current market, £7.5million is appropriate,’ says Mark Granger, of estate agent Carter Jonas. The couple said the sale was because of their retirement and consideration for their adult children.
Jack Whitehall’s fiancee makes a model return
Roxy Horner, 34, is engaged to Jack Whitehall. They have a daughter, Elsie, who was born in 2023
It’s been more than three years since Roxy Horner last graced a runway, but comedian Jack Whitehall’s fiancee is to make a stylish comeback during London Fashion Week.
The model, 34, will walk in the Sprayground Runway show at Freemasons’ Hall tomorrow. ‘I haven’t done modelling in so long because I took some time out when I became a mum. Now I want to start getting back into things,’ she tells me at the Backstage Chelsea x Kidwear Collective ‘Mini Me’ event.
Roxy, who gave birth to Elsie, in 2023, adds: ‘I have a little bit more time for myself now.’
