As falls from grace go, it’s been pretty dizzying – a headlong plunge during which he’s forfeited arguably the most beautiful house in Ireland, a £6million townhouse in Kensington, a £25million estate in Shropshire and a £30million collection of Old Master paintings.
But Lord Magan, a former Conservative Party treasurer whose fortune was once estimated at £200million, didn’t hit rock bottom when declared bankrupt in 2020. The worst, it transpires, was still to come.
And it came this week in a humiliating episode at the Turf Club in London, where Magan, 79, has been a member for many years – alongside the Dukes of Beaufort and Rutland, the Marquess of Bristol, various belted earls and fellow former Tory Party treasurer, Lord Hesketh.
‘He’s been kicked out,’ I’m told. ‘It was decided at a committee meeting.’ Magan, who was present at the meeting, was told that he had a fortnight in which to tender his resignation – or be expelled from the club.
It’s a startling, almost unprecedented outcome. ‘Expelling a member is as rare as rocking-horse s***,’ reflects a Turf Club aficionado, adding that a discreet word is usually all that’s needed to prompt a resignation – especially when bills are repeatedly left unpaid.
Magan, who made his first fortune with Hambro Magan, a private equity firm he co-founded with banker Rupert Hambro, seemingly falls into a different category. ‘He was absolutely foul to a member of staff,’ I’m told. This may surprise his estranged wife, Wendy, who married Magan in 1972 and later lived with him in what one guest recalls as an ‘extraordinary’ manner at Castletown Cox in Ireland’s County Kilkenny, with ‘huge numbers of staff – butlers, the lot’.
Magan’s fortunes later dwindled. In 2018, 19 years after buying Castletown, he sold it for £18million and remained there as a tenant – only to fall £500,000 in arrears with rent just a year later.
Wendy thought that at least the £6million house in Kensington was secure. But she was wrong: Magan had mortgaged it to the hilt. Bankruptcy followed. Wendy moved to a flat owned by a family trust – only to receive an eviction notice shortly before last Christmas, as I disclosed at the time.
Lord Magan, pictured with estranged wife Wendy in 2003
Magan seems much more determined to cling on at the Turf, declaring himself ‘very surprised and very disappointed’, and summarising the case against him as ‘totally without merit’.
He added that he has ‘very many good friends who are also long-time members’ – and ‘very many good friends amongst the staff’. He assures me that ‘an Extraordinary General Meeting to consider appropriate counter-proposals must be extremely likely’.
Now on his fifth marriage, Sir Salman Rushdie responds to claims from his fourth wife, TV presenter Padma Lakshmi, that their three-year marriage ended in 2007 after he labelled her ‘a bad investment’ because a health issue made it hard for her to have sex. ‘All of it’s bull****’ says the author of Midnight’s Children. ‘It makes a difference to how I feel about her… [we’re] on better terms, but I wouldn’t like to hang out with her.’
Myleene’s meals go cold
Myleene Klass’s meal-kit company has gone into liquidation, owing £348,000 in debts
Myleene Klass’s ‘restaurant-quality’ meal-kit company, which the TV presenter co-founded amid increased consumption of junk food during lockdown, offered scrumptious alternatives including duck cassoulet and roasted sea bream.
It showed such promise that it had the backing of Manchester United’s then-vice chairman Ed Woodward. So these figures may be tough for customers to swallow. I can disclose that My Supper Hero has gone into liquidation, owing £348,000 in debts, including more than £15,000 to employees.
Myleene, 47, founded the firm with restaurant entrepreneur Jamie Barber.
(Very) modern manners
Former Conservative politician Penny Mordaunt promotes her new book ‘Pomp & Circumstance: Why Britain’s Traditions Matter’
Dame Penny Mordaunt’s new book, Pomp & Circumstance – which is about ‘why Britain’s traditions matter’ – won’t hit US shelves until the new year.
But at least one American already has his hands on a copy. ‘The President of the United States has a copy,’ Dame Penny tells me.
The former defence secretary, who wielded swords for more than an hour at King Charles’s coronation, explains she sent a copy to Donald Trump, and to His Majesty, because ‘it cheers everyone up’.
Of President Trump, Mordaunt, 52, adds: ‘Given his approval of pomp and circumstance in Britain, I’m sure it will go down well.’
Trump, 79, has spoken fondly of his Scottish mother’s love of the monarchy and its traditions, saying: ‘She loved the Queen… she loved the ceremony and the beauty.’
Whitehall’s fiancee ‘just can’t wait’ to marry comedian
Comedian Jack Whitehall and fiancee Roxy Horner at the BRIT awards this year
The countdown is on for comedian Jack Whitehall and his fiancee Roxy Horner, who are gearing up to say, ‘I do’.
Speaking at the launch of Box Piccadilly sports bar in London, Roxy revealed that wedding preparations are well under way – and she’s keeping her cool.
The model, 34, tells me: ‘It’s coming along really well – I’m really excited. I’m not going to be a bridezilla, I’m very laid back about it all.’ The mother of one – who had daughter Elsie with Jack in 2023 – says that she’s not getting caught up in the finer details.
‘I just can’t wait to get married. As long as I’ve got a dress, a venue, and my man, I’m good.’
And it’s not just Jack, 37, she’s excited to make things official with – Roxy says she already feels part of the Whitehall family.
‘They’ve always been [family] to me – now we’re just making it official.’
Elusive graffiti artist Banksy, whom The Mail on Sunday suggested was privately educated Bristolian Robin Gunningham in 2008, takes care to stay out of sight. But another major street artist, Lee Quinones, tells me at his Outside Is America exhibition in Mayfair: ‘I surprised Banksy. We were working on a project at the Museum of Contemporary Art, he was with his team… at 3am.’ Quinones adds: ‘He was so shocked his team had failed him at that moment.’
Adventurer’s next test? Finding love
Form an orderly queue, ladies. Rugged adventurer Hugo Turner – one half of TV’s irresistible Turner Twins, famed for rowing the Atlantic, trekking to the North Pole and conquering Himalayan peaks – is still on the hunt for his greatest adventure yet: love.
‘I’m single. I’m on [celebrity dating app] Raya,’ Hugo, 37, tells me at a Crafted By True party at the clothing store Drake’s in Mayfair.
When it comes to compatibility, he’s clear: ‘I’m looking for someone with real passion – it doesn’t matter what for.’ While his twin Ross is settling down with model Rosie Tapner, who is expecting their first child, Hugo’s focused on a different kind of family life. ‘I can’t wait to be an uncle,’ he says.
Kylie Minogue teamed up with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds to record Where the Wild Roses Grow 30 years ago, and Cave appears to miss working with his fellow Aussie.
‘I don’t dream often. When I do, it’s about Kylie’s hot pants,’ Cave, 68, says at the London Literature Festival. ‘I’ve actually touched them,’ he reveals.
Of the star’s golden pants from her Spinning Around video, he explains: ‘You go to the performing arts museum in Melbourne… you put on white gloves, and you can touch them.’
Director took me for Bollywood star
They say to never meet your heroes.
The Good Place star Jameela Jamil may wish she hadn’t met ‘the most famous director in the world’, whom she does not name but says mistook her for Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra.
Jameela had met the director when she was 16, while working at a video store. The actress, 39, says: ‘He spots me at a lunch and he goes “Hey!” and I’m like, no way does he remember me from 25 years ago from the video shop. And then he goes “So how’s Quantico?” [a TV series starring Priyanka] And I was like f***, he thinks I’m Priyanka Chopra.’
She tells comic Romesh Ranganathan that she impersonated Priyanka’s Indian accent for five minutes.
She adds: ‘It’s not inherently racist even though she and I do look nothing alike… he just thinks he had a really good time with her.’
He is known as the ‘hunkiest Macbeth you’ll ever see’. Outlander star Sam Heughan, 45, has been fuelling his brawny look for years. But one dinner in Argentina left him fighting crime with an upset stomach. ‘I had a huge dinner the night before a touring production of Batman and something just wasn’t right. It was hard to fight off 200 of the Joker’s mercenaries with food poisoning.’
The smart set’s talking about… the costly coronet of Lords’ last Craigavon
He was a founder member of the Peers’ and MPs’ All Party Motorcycle Group, opting not for the Moto Guzzi California favoured by Viscount Falkland, or a Harley Davison Ultra Classic Tourer like the Earl of Denbigh, but a foldable Honda Motocompo – ‘so small,’ Viscount Craigavon explained, ‘it goes under the Lords’ security barriers’.
But his lordship’s death in March, aged 80, put an end not only to his biking but also his title – created for his grandfather, James Craig, Northern Ireland’s first prime minister.
Though the 3rd Viscount had two sisters – and a nephew and four nieces – he lacked a male heir. The title could not be passed down
the female line. So it’s perhaps unsurprising that the Craigavon coronet was up for sale at Duke’s auctioneers in Dorset last week and went under the hammer for £5,400 – way over the £1,000 to £2,000 estimate.
I wonder what Lord Craigavon’s crash helmet would fetch?
