Such has been Paul Hollywood’s astonishing success since making his television debut 25 years ago that he’s now on familiar terms with Hugh Jackman, Michael J Fox and Ryan Reynolds – not to mention Reynolds’s wife, the unforgettable Blake Lively.
He is also rich enough to indulge himself in a manner that he’d once have considered unthinkable, recently declaring his determination to gain his helicopter pilot’s licence so that he can enjoy pleasure trips, such as popping ‘over to France for a croissant’.
But fame and fortune have not, alas, equipped The Great British Bake Off judge with one most desirable attribute – good taste.
That’s the bleak verdict of his local council in Kent where Hollywood, 59, and his second wife, Melissa Spalding, live in a £1million, four-bedroom, Grade II listed farmhouse, insulated from prying eyes by eight acres of grounds.
The couple, who married in 2023, had hoped to replace a dilapidated conservatory with a ‘pavilion-style’ extension whose sizeable dimensions would allow for an open-plan kitchen where Hollywood could film cookery shows. This particular architectural recipe didn’t cause so much as a twitching nostril among Hollywood’s neighbours.
But it left the planning officer reaching for the smelling salts – particularly the claim that the 350 sqft extension was ‘necessary’ for a larger four-bedroomed house and ‘for the ad-hoc filming of documentaries for… a TV personality and celebrity chef’.
‘By virtue of its size, scale, bulk, design and massing, [it] would not be a sympathetic or appropriate addition to the listed building,’ he concluded, having examined proposals for the ‘incredibly large’ and ‘bulky and dominant’ extension.
It’s possibly the most withering verdict Hollywood has suffered since his first wife, Alex, summarised their marriage as ‘too over-seasoned with extra-marital affairs’, after Paul tucked into perky American chef Marcela Valladolid.
Paul Hollywood had hoped to replace a dilapidated conservatory with a ‘pavilion-style’ extension – but council officers have turned down the plans
Is that Benedict Om-berbatch?
Coping with fame was elementary for Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch, who has revealed that a chance meeting with a Tibetan Buddhist community taught him the value of meditation when he was just 19.
The Harrow-educated actor, 49, was on a backpacking trip around India when he met the religious group in Darjeeling.
‘For me, meditation is a way of life,’ he says. ‘It allows you to separate yourself from your thoughts and accept the cause of your pain. We all suffer; it’s the human condition.
‘Practice definitely helps. Fame? I don’t complain if people recognise me on the street; it’s all relative.’ Om.
Love is not a losing game for Marisa
Marisa Abela went back to white as she exchanged vows with fellow actor Jamie Bogyo.
The actress, 28, who played Amy Winehouse in biopic Back To Black, wore an Emilia Wickstead wedding dress, when she and Bogyo, 31, were married at Firle Place, the ancestral home of Viscount Gage, in East Sussex.
Marisa – who also starred in racy BBC drama Industry, about trainees at a City investment bank – was later lifted up and twirled around on the dance floor at the reception at Soho House Brighton.
Guests included Game Of Thrones star Kit Harington, who played her fiance in Industry.
‘It was the greatest moment of our lives,’ says Marisa, who was educated at £50,000-per-year Roedean boarding school. ‘There was just so much love in that room. It was just the most personal, heartfelt ceremony.’
Marisa Abela went back to white as she exchanged vows with fellow actor Jamie Bogyo
She’s The Apprentice’s only runner-up to win an investment from Lord Sugar – and Susie Ma has certainly made the £200,000 work.
Newly published accounts for her beauty company, Tropic Skincare Ltd, reveal that Ma, 36, who appeared in the 2011 series of the BBC show, paid herself a dividend of £18.2 million in 2024 and a further £2 million dividend in April this year.
Tropic Skincare posted a record turnover of £68 million last year and net profits of £6.9 million.
What would Aunt Agatha say? Putting on upper-class accents proved painful for Frank Skinner when he performed the voices for a new Jeeves And Wooster audiobook.
‘It really hurt my throat,’ wails the comedian, 68, who grew up in a council house in the West Midlands.
‘I don’t know how the posh keep it up. I’ve been in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot. They talk like that for six or seven hours. I mean, they keep lubricated, I’ll give them that,’ he adds, nasally.
How Bard left Lily lost for words
Lily Allen had to make an embarrassing admission on the first day of rehearsals for the West End play 2:22 A Ghost Story, in which she starred.
Speaking about the cast’s voice coach, the pop singer and actress, 40, says: ‘She was, like, ‘I would just like everyone to feel the space and I want you to hit the back of the room.
‘So if you just take your favourite Shakespearean monologue and just shout it to the back of the room’.
I was, like, ‘What? I don’t know any Shakespearean monologues’.’
To be, or not to be an actress, Lily: that is the question.
Having a Bard day: Lily Allen had to make an embarrassing admission on the first day of rehearsals for the West End play 2:22 A Ghost Story
