Secret Celebrity Gossip #16

[Lalla]

I'm a similar age too, I wasn't even allowed out to the offie, let alone to nightclubs I do remember though having adult men following me down the road in their cars trying to talk to me when I was 13 or 14, and although I looked a bit older, I was obviously still a schoolkid in uniform, shoes and socks. Proper creepy. Also at school we used to have to walk along a major A road to get to PE lessons (in short PE skirts), the comments we used to get from passing car and lorry drivers were grim.... I knew a few girls at school who had 'boyfriends' in their late 20s when we were 15 - with their parents full knowledge and approval (which always baffled me, even back then!) It's odd how normalised something like that was comparatively recently.

 

[Prince fan 1999]

@Gagiteebo going through my past posts with a sick emoji....


Do you remember the wedding??!!! And then they were both interviewed by Terry Wogan, who was basically congratulating Bill Wyman for pulling a girl like Mandy. Can you imagine that happening now?! Actually, Mandy wrote a book about her life with Wyman, I can’t remember the name, and it came out in 1995 (I think) so it might not still be in print, but it’s well worth hunting down, if I can find it, I will post back.

There's a copy on Amazon for £43.66 second hand

 

[TheJoanCollinsFanClub]

There's a copy on Amazon for £43.66 second hand

That’s interesting, and while we all know the story, and yes it’s shocking and hard to read, it’s worth reading in order to understand why it happened, and she also talks about her illness, and Bill abandoning her, her recovery, and meeting and marrying her second husband (the footballer Pat Van der Howe). If you do get it, let me know what you think

 

[Falkor]

Pre-2003 (when the law changed so that topless models had to be 18) papers like the Sun and the Daily Star would run Page 3 countdowns, counting down the days until a girl turned 16 and they could legally picture her topless. Seems unbelievable now, doesn't it?

 

[Ohflogoff]

Speaking of Peaches Geldof (from last thread), she was in another reality show about a magazine. Seems like a very pretentious bunch:

What a diverse bunch

 

[lalalanded]

Can’t say I’m suprised by her behaviour, as she has long been accused of being a racist, hence the wearing of the Blackamoor Brooch. Didn’t they sell their country mansion a few years ago, and banked the money before moving to Kensington Palace for a peppercorn rent? And then they were “forced” to move out to make way for Harry & Meghan?? Not sure where they are living now, or if they have separated (but not divorced) and have separate houses now? And didn’t Freddy Windsor marry Claudia Winkleman’s sister? Jeez, imagine having Princess Michael as your MIL?!!! Poor girl !!

Oh God, that reminds me - I remember being totally shocked that he married a woman because does anyone else remember the newspapers printing some VERY heavy hints about him being gay? Apparently he was a frequent attendee at 'all men' fancy dress parties . The Winkleman's seem to be landed gentry tbh. I never understood how someone like Claudie could get the jobs she has and make the money she does. For a start, she always looks an absolute mess.

 

[Jelly Bean]

Didn't Mandy Smith's mother start dating Bill Wyman's grown son, at the same time that Bill Wyman was grooming dating Mandy?
I vaguely remember photo shoots with them all posing together

 

[RedMagnolia]

Oh God, that reminds me - I remember being totally shocked that he married a woman because does anyone else remember the newspapers printing some VERY heavy hints about him being gay? Apparently he was a frequent attendee at 'all men' fancy dress parties . The Winkleman's seem to be landed gentry tbh. I never understood how someone like Claudie could get the jobs she has and make the money she does. For a start, she always looks an absolute mess.

Her mother is Eve Pollard - she probably has an awful lot of dirt on an awful lot of people

 

[Flowergirl14]

Princess Michael of Kent is another one with an interesting history. Her husband, Prince Michael, is apparently, Liz’s favourite cousin, and so the royals have had to put up with her without upsetting Prince Michael. For instance, does anyone remember when Liz said of Princess Michael “Oh she’s far grander than us” (or words similar !!). And what about when she wore the “Blackamoor brooch” (Very controversial!!). Also wasn’t her father supposed to be a Nazi SS Officer?). And does anyone remember a few years ago, when Princess Michael was romantically linked to a much younger, wealthy Russian guy? And also, her husband was also rumoured to have had a long standing affair with a lady who had some kind of dog walking business? And also, the very creepy way that Prince Michael seems to model his “look” on his late cousin, the Russian Czar, who was famously murdered along with his wife, and their children by the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution. Princess Michael, is rumoured to have had quite a lot of plastic surgery, including several facelifts, but that’s not surprising, as both of them are incredibly vain individuals.!!

I find it creepy that way that the Duchess of Cambridge’s brother models himself on the old Royal Family, growing that beard. Trying to look like the Queen’s cousins and the Russian side of the family.

 

[RedMagnolia]

Didn't Mandy Smith's mother start dating Bill Wyman's grown son, at the same time that Bill Wyman was grooming dating Mandy?
I vaguely remember photo shoots with them all posing together

1994, cover of Hello magazine.

<quietly pukes>

 

[Peachy9]

1994, cover of Hello magazine.

<quietly pukes>

Oh god I thought that was a young Eamon Holmes!

 

[TheJoanCollinsFanClub]

Didn't Mandy Smith's mother start dating Bill Wyman's grown son, at the same time that Bill Wyman was grooming dating Mandy?
I vaguely remember photo shoots with them all posing together

Yes, Stephen (Bill’s son) actually got engaged to Patsy Smith at the same time as Mandy was with Bill. In her book, Mandy recalls being at Bill’s country residence “Gedding Hall” in Suffolk. She was around 14 at the time, and her mum and sister had also gone to Gedding for the weekend. Mandy said that Stephen turned up unexpectedly, and at one point, Mandy walked into the kitchen, and saw her mum and Stephen holding hands and looking like lovestruck teenagers. Not long after, they announced their engagement, but I don’t think they got married, and it’s been a long time since I have heard anything about either of them..

 

[RedMagnolia]

Oh god I thought that was a young Eamon Holmes!

I'm trying to imagine a world in which someone's mum could set up home with their daughter's husband's son...and not think it was incredibly wrong on so many levels.

 

[Jelly Bean]

Oh god I thought that was a young Eamon Holmes!

Or Daniel o Donnell.
Can't imagine why either relationship didn't last

 

[TheJoanCollinsFanClub]

I find it creepy that way that the Duchess of Cambridge’s brother models himself on the old Royal Family, growing that beard. Trying to look like the Queen’s cousins and the Russian side of the family.

That is so true, and I agree, it’s totally creepy

 

[Gym&Tonic]

Oh god I thought that was a young Eamon Holmes!

I thought it was Daniel O Donnell!

 

[Dizzy]

Completely irrelevant comment but I do really love Claudia's dress sense. Totally agree that her make up can look a bit wild sometimes though.

I also thought Wyman's son was Eamon Holmes!

 

[Lori J]

1994, cover of Hello magazine.

<quietly pukes>

Hello! Magazine were obsessed by the Smith family - they even had Mandy on the cover with a photo taken from her hospital bed !

 

[lalalanded]

Speaking of Peaches Geldof (from last thread), she was in another reality show about a magazine. Seems like a very pretentious bunch:

She was awful, just awful. Pixie wasn't much better either. Bob should be ashamed to have daughters behaving like that. The press absolutely loathed her at the time but after she died it was article after article about what a vulnerable, helpless girl she was. It went on for weeks and it was nauseating. I can tell you for nothing that girls with serious drug problems and small children living on council estates do not get that kind of love, least of all from the press.

 

[Handerton]

I have more sympathy with Mandy because she was groomed. Not sure why Bill Wyman isn’t the subject of revulsion.

i can remember the ’wild child’ era. Mandy Smith regularly appeared in Mizz and similar magazines in the eighties, after the Wyman story broke. I find it odd, looking back, that the magazines felt it was appropriate to celebrate a girl who’d been seduced by a much older man, had had her childhood robbed from her and had become famous as a consequence. But there she was, telling us what she did over Christmas and what she wore out clubbing in London; she was still 16 at this point, I think.

What is weird is, when the antics of the ‘wild child’ girls were reported in the tabloids, it was all, ooh, aren’t they naughty the little minxes? As if the stories were sexy, not disturbing. It was a very different time. I can recall one headline, perhaps relating to Amanda de Cadenet or Emma Ridley, along the lines of, I was dragged crying from the bed of a 32 year old man when I was 15 (where we were told that she’d gone willingly, and it was the police or her parents removing her). As if that would be served up for titillation now!

Mind you, that was in an era when Sam Fox, Suzanne Mizzi and Maria Whittaker were photographed for page 3 with cuddly toys and being described as 16 year old sizzlers etc. Christ!

She wasn’t groomed, but pimped out by her mother really. It’s almost forgotten now that many 14, 14 and 15 year olds slept with Bowie, Bolan, Hendrix, Noddy Holder even - and all boast of those times in various interviews and autobiographies.

Mandy Smiths mum was just one of the first to make a business of offering her child to a musician. Wyman was just a selfish prick for even looking at someone that young and should be locked up - but then so should virtually every member of any 90s boyband because they have all bragged of it too