Meghan’s friend Jameela Jamil is, however, clear about why she left Britain and moved to California herself.
‘I went over there because I was sick of England,’ declares the actress, model and television presenter, who contributed to the 2019 issue of British Vogue of which the duchess was guest editor.
Jameela, 39, who attended Queen’s College School in London, where the fees are £32,000 per year and whose alumnae include Vogue supremo Anna Wintour and actress Jane Asher, says: ‘[I was sick of] being made to feel at 28 that my time was up, being told to reinvent myself. I’ve never heard of a man being told he needs to reinvent himself in his 20s.’
Jameela Jamil moved to Los Angeles after becoming ‘sick of being made to feel my time was up’. She describes her new home as ‘a perfect place’
She adds on the Travel Secrets podcast: ‘I’d been told for 17 years that my 15 minutes [of fame] is going to be up soon. At what point are we going to stop panicking women?
‘It’s so preposterous. I was offended by the way I was being treated, so I went to America.’
Jameela, who lives in Los Angeles with her musician boyfriend James Blake, appeared on Meghan’s podcast series, Archetypes, in 2022.
She sympathetically told the duchess: ‘It’s an unfathomable amount of s*** that you take, Meghan.’
The actress, who attended the British Consulate General’s pre-Oscars party celebrating British excellence in film in LA last year, praised the American former actress as a ‘very normal, very kind, very civilised woman’.
Of Meghan’s home state, she says: ‘It’s such a perfect place to find yourself.
‘Los Angeles, in particular, is a very individualist place. You can be who you want – you don’t have to fit in.’
During their first visit to Balmoral, Tony Blair’s wife, Cherie, said to Princess Anne, ‘Please call me Cherie.’ Anne responded: ‘Actually, I prefer Mrs Blair.’ King Charles’s sister is, however, happy to be addressed informally herself.
‘I did the Royal Variety Performance before Princess Anne,’ recalls Brian Poole, of pop band The Tremeloes, at the relaunch of guitar shop Regent Sounds in London’s West End. ‘I shook hands with her and said, “Sorry, Ma’am, I’m nervous”. She said, “You don’t have to call me Ma’am. I’m like everyone else, don’t worry.”’
Forget kissing frogs – Lila and pals eat them!
Kate Moss’s daughter, Lila, pictured leaving the Ritz in Paris as part of Paris Fashion Week on Monday
She went to a chic brasserie with friends Iris Law and Ella Richards, where the friends tucked into frog’s legs
Most models pick at salads, but Kate Moss’s daughter Lila proved that she’s not afraid of a hearty French meal as she celebrated her 23rd birthday in Paris.
The Vogue cover star, left, whose father is magazine supremo Jefferson Hack, marked the occasion with a chic brasserie gathering alongside her model friends Iris Law, 24, daughter of Jude Law and Sadie Frost, and Ella Richards, 27, granddaughter of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith.
They tucked into frogs’ legs, with Iris and Lila posing for playful photographs mid-bite. Ella shared a smiling snap of Lila, writing: ‘Happiest of birthdays to my cutie Lila.’
Now touring Britain with his Sound Of The 60s show, DJ Tony Blackburn, reflecting on his health scare two years ago, playfully recalls: ‘I had sepsis and I gather I nearly died. I wasn’t aware of it until I woke up one morning and all my family were around the bed. And I thought, “God, they’re not going to get my money yet”. ’ Still a regular on the BBC almost 60 years since his debut, the 82-year-old jokes: ‘I’ve just been offered a lifelong contract by Radio 2…two years.’
Model Yasmin marks her territory
Duran Duran singer Simon Le Bon and model wife Yasmin’s £5million London home is bursting at the seams with three generations of family, as I reported last month.
Now, Yasmin, 60, reveals that she had to take drastic measures to keep her favourite outfits away from the clutches of their three daughters, Amber, 36, Saffron, 34, and Tallulah, 31, who share the house with them, along with their partners and children.
‘Name tapes are really useful,’ Yasmin explains. ‘I started to get my own YLB ones, because it was getting really confusing with our clothes. Amber loves grey T-shirts and would pinch mine, so I put my name tapes on.’
Mind you, Yasmin is not averse to ‘borrowing’ family clothes herself. ‘I wear one of my son-in-law’s T-shirts,’ she admits.
Oscar-winning lyricist Don Black’s hits include Born Free and Diamonds Are Forever. But he admits that it’s taken him quite some time to get his new West End musical, From The Heart, to the stage. ‘I’ve been working on it for 30 years,’ Don, 87, tells me at the 2025 BMI London Awards at The Dorchester in Mayfair, adding: ‘It’s one of those things that I started and then I was busy with other stuff.’ Inspired by New York’s cabaret scene, it stars Britain’s Got Talent winner Sydnie Christmas and opens this month at the Fortune Theatre in London.
Watson’s wizard earnings
Publicly savaged by Harry Potter author J K Rowling this week for being ‘ignorant of how ignorant she is’ over her views on transgender rights, Emma Watson continues to reap the rewards from her role as Hermione Granger in the films about the boy wizard.
Emma Watson has continued to benefit from her time playing Hermione Granger – last year increasing her company’s net worth to £25.8million
The 35-year-old actress, added £2 million last year to her riches at Hestia Hebe, the private firm into which she channels her earnings. Its profit, reported in accounts filed at Companies House, increase her company’s net worth to £25.8 million. They also disclose the purchase and sale of £12 million stocks and shares during 2024.
