While BBC star and Strictly Come Dancing winner Ore Oduba has been enjoying his newly single life by posting half-naked photographs of himself on social media, his estranged wife, Portia, has voiced her despair.
‘What I am going through is one of the most stressful things, doing the daily grind, looking after two kids and being present,’ says Portia, 35, who has a seven-year-old son, Roman, with Oduba as well as a daughter, Genie, three.
‘You feel like you’re constantly treading water and, sometimes, I feel like I can’t do this any more, I am done.’
Former television researcher Portia made the comments while drinking half a bottle of £13.99 Aldi champagne as part of a livestream broadcast for her 50,000 followers on Instagram. She admits that she’s trying to cut down on the booze, having turned to the bottle as a coping strategy during a difficult period.
‘My tolerance of alcohol has gone up in the past few years,’ she says. ‘My tolerance is very high now, so three glasses doesn’t touch the sides. I once had a diet of pure alcohol, but I’m through those trenches now.’
The couple surprised fans when they announced their separation last October. Oduba, 39, has been showing off his toned body in fitness videos.
The former children’s television presenter, who will soon star in a touring production of the Mel Brooks musical Young Frankenstein, has been wearing a pair of swimming trunks with the LGBTQ symbol on the front and the word ‘Pride’ emblazoned in rainbow letters on the back.
He wrote a post about how the tragic death of his sister Lola had encouraged him to be his ‘authentic self’.
Ore and Portia Oduba attend London Fashion Week in 2019
‘While BBC star and Strictly Come Dancing winner Ore Oduba has been enjoying his newly single life by posting half-naked photographs of himself on social media, his estranged wife, Portia, has voiced her despair’
Portia admits that she’s trying to cut down on the booze, having turned to the bottle as a coping strategy during a difficult period
He says: ‘In so many ways, my sister’s death gave ME the gift of life.
‘Having realised I’d lived the majority of my life for the attention of others, often suppressing my authentic self.’
Sir Ian’s no-fly zone
Sir Ian McKellen has mysteriously pulled out of an international premiere for his latest film, The Christophers, on doctor’s orders.
Making a pre-recorded appearance at the Toronto Film Festival where his latest black comedy movie was being screened, the celebrated actor, 86, confirmed his ‘medical advisers’ had told him he shouldn’t fly, adding ‘Better safe than sorry’.
McKellen has been in the wars in recent times. Last year, he alarmingly fell off the stage at London’s Noel Coward Theatre, suffering a snapped wrist and chipped vertebra.
White Mischief star Greta Scacchi, who has two kids, did not struggle to cope when they left home. The actress, 65, says: ‘I don’t want to offend my children, but when people talk about terrible empty nest syndrome? Well, I didn’t have any of that. I was thrilled to bits.’
Jaime’s party bites at 40th birthday bash
Party-loving actress Jaime Winstone celebrated turning 40 in a typically exuberant fashion at the weekend.
The daughter of Hollywood hard man Ray Winstone transformed her Hertfordshire home into a rock festival-style venue she called Winstock.
Jaime, who played the young Peggy Mitchell in TV soap EastEnders and Dame Barbara Windsor in biopic Babs, wore a blonde wig and netted dress as she sat in her ‘naughty or nice’ party bus. Her DJ husband James Suckling, with whom she has a nine-year-old son, enjoyed the look as he took a bite out of her platform boot.
Party-loving actress Jaime Winstone celebrated turning 40 in a typically exuberant fashion at the weekend. Pictured with DJ husband James Suckling
Pinter put out by tips on writing
Historian Lady Antonia Fraser has often described her 28-year marriage to the late playwright Harold Pinter as a ‘true love story’. But she admits that their relationship wasn’t always smooth sailing, especially when it came to their differing views on one another’s work.
‘We were very open with each other, as we wrote completely different things,’ Dame Antonia, 93, tells The Oldie podcast. Recalling one particularly tense moment, she says: ‘I gave him feedback on Betrayal. I said, ‘There’s a scene missing.’
‘Harold was, frankly, angry. He went walking around Holland Park at high speed, came back and wrote the scene. But it wasn’t the scene I meant. It made for quite a different scene, a brilliant scene.’
Betrayal has since become one of Pinter’s most celebrated plays. She adds: ‘It was even performed on Broadway by Daniel Craig – it doesn’t get much better than that.’
Jack Draper has made almost £6 million in prize money in his tennis career and he’s not doing badly off court either. Newly filed accounts for JDBN Ltd, the company through which he channels his sponsorship and marketing earnings, reveal that it made £1 million in profits. An ambassador for Burberry, Draper, 23, held £1.3 million in assets before bills in the year to last November.
Playing choirmaster Dr Guthrie in Alan Bennett’s new film The Choral, Ralph Fiennes admits that he had to overcome real-life musical limitations.
Required to be fluent with the conductor’s baton when playing the part, Fiennes confesses: ‘I don’t read music, so it was very hard to understand, not just the beats, but how the hand moves.’
After hiring glamorous Australian conductor Natalie Murray Beale to assist him, Bafta-nominated Ralph adds: ‘They tell me that, thanks to some skilful camera angles, I got away with it.’
