Royal’s Jab at Paul Hollywood, Cancer Cure Controversy, and Rocker’s Age Aversion: Richard Eden’s Diary

Anne’s royal roasting for Hollywood’s famous tan

Now Prince Philip is no longer with us, his daughter seems to be keeping up the Royal Family’s tradition of displaying breathtaking candour.  

I hear that Princess Anne gave Paul Hollywood a taste of his own medicine when she met The Great British Bake Off judge at Windsor Castle.

Hollywood, 59, is known for leaving contestants on the Channel 4 show quaking in their aprons with his piercing blue eyes and blunt feedback.

The baker from Wallasey, Merseyside, was invited to Windsor last year to collect the MBE he was awarded in the King’s New Year Honours List for ‘services to baking and broadcasting’.

Recalling the ceremony at the castle, Hollywood says the princess couldn’t resist a jibe at his trademark perma-tan.

‘The first thing she said to me was, “Where did you get your sickening tan?”’ he reveals.

Hollywood’s tan is the subject of much discussion on Bake Off.

Fellow judge Dame Prue Leith has claimed that it causes problems for the Channel 4 crew because he changes colour during filming. ‘The popular question I get about Paul is, “Is the tan fake?”’ she said in 2023. ‘If he goes into the sun for 20 minutes he comes out two shades darker. Immediately.’

Dame Prue added: ‘Paul and I have a lot of time off because people have to bake, so he will take his shirt off and lie in a hammock. Then the make-up people complain he doesn’t look like he did 20 minutes ago.’

Hollywood said Anne’s jibe led to some small talk, adding: ‘We talked about where I’d been on holiday, then she said, “I really like Chelsea buns.” She was charming and fascinating.’

He then offered to bake her a batch, which was delivered shortly after. Let’s hope they didn’t have soggy bottoms…

Dame Sheila: Raw veg helped me beat cancer

Dame Sheila Hancock has always done things her own way – and it seems that her approach to cancer was no exception.

The Olivier Award-winning actress, 92, has revealed that she rejected chemotherapy after being diagnosed with breast cancer, choosing instead a year-long raw vegetable diet under the guidance of an alternative-medicine specialist.

‘I had breast cancer, and I did go on a special diet for a year,’ says the widow of Inspector Morse star John Thaw. ‘There was a marvellous man called Dr Latto who was in alternative medicine. You’d have injections of mistletoe, and I refused chemo.’

Dr Gordon Latto believed a raw, meat-free diet helped ‘free the liver to get rid of poisons’. She took his advice literally. She says: ‘I lived mainly on raw vegetables and a tiny bit of cheese. No coffee, no alcohol for a year.’

Mistletoe injections are claimed to boost immunity. Dame Sheila says her consultant agreed to give her alternative approach a year – with the strict caveat that she would return to standard treatment if her cancer recurred. It never did.

I’m all about food, says star who plays Kate Moss

Kate Moss memorably declared that ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’, but the actress portraying her in a forthcoming film disagrees.

Ellie Bamber, who plays the supermodel in Moss & Freud, reveals that she’s not about to adopt any spartan eating habits.

‘Food is so important to me,’ says the actress, 28, pictured, who’s best known for her role in the BBC’s version of Les Miserables. ‘I’m all about the food. I think that’s how I really get to know a city – through the cuisine.’

The film, which explores Moss’s relationship with the late artist Lucian Freud and is due for release this year, might see Ellie living like a waif on-screen – but off-screen it’s a different story.

‘I love eating a variety of things,’ she tells the Travels Secrets podcast. ‘I love Italian food, Chinese food, Japanese food, Mexican food – I just have such a taste for it.’

From Tramp to being a Lady

She was the striking, Singapore-born, 1960s model, known simply as Anak, who sauntered into Tramp nightclub one evening in 1970 and left destined to become the daughter-in-law of a duke.

Anak, who has died at 83, made her husband-to-be, Lord Francis Russell, youngest son of the 13th Duke of Bedford, the envy of every red-blooded male on the Tube, which was festooned with ads showing her ‘clad in little but a pair of knee-length boots’.

Anak said modelling simply required her to wash her hair and ‘look lovely’, adding: ‘I don’t mind doing nude photography, as long as the pictures are in good taste.’

She and Francis had a daughter, Czarina, but parted after 23 years. 

She later became the companion of Greek shipping heir Basil Embiricos. 

She is survived by Czarina, and William and Patricia, her children by her first husband, George Carrington.

Soon to turn a sprightly 85, Sir Ringo Starr takes exception to any mention of his age. ‘It is another birthday. 

No one does anything these days without mentioning your age,’ the former Beatle grumbles. 

Pointing to his head, he adds playfully: ‘I keep telling people, I’m 24 in here.’ Youthful-looking Ringo battles Father Time with his chestnut-dyed locks and beard. 

Kate Winslet’s daughter Mia Threapleton didn’t want to make a scene when she saw her new film, The Phoenician Scheme, at the cinema. 

‘I didn’t want to have any loud snack packets. So I bought two enormous tomatoes,’ says Mia, 24. ‘The opening credits started, and I just burst into tears. I was eating this huge tomato and silently crying, going, “Oh, my God, this is insane. That’s so much of my face”.’ 

The rising star will just have to get used to seeing herself in close-up on the big screen.

Kirsty Bertarelli, 53, who became Britain’s richest divorcee when her former husband, Ernesto, agreed to a £350million settlement in 2021, is raising cash for children’s charity the Laureus Sport For Good Foundation, saying it’s a cause ‘I truly believe in’. 

The ex-Miss UK will face the risk of altitude sickness when she climbs 19,000ft Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania with her three children.