As David Beckham’s wife, Victoria, struggles to keep her fashion label going, his sister has been forced to admit defeat with her own business aimed at the rich and famous.
I can reveal that Joanne Beckham has closed down her concierge service that was meant to plan the social lives of well-heeled Londoners.
The £400-a-month club, WeAreYour City, was trumpeted as a Little Black Book guide to the capital’s most sought-after attractions which would supply shopping, restaurant and hotel recommendations.
‘It’s very sad, but she couldn’t make it work,’ one of her associates tells me.
Joanne, 38, made the most of her connections by promoting WeAre YourCity using a photograph of her with the former England captain at its glittering launch party in 2014.
David Beckham and his sister Joanne. She made the most of her connections by promoting WeAre YourCity using a photograph of her with the former England captain at its glittering launch party in 2014
She set up the business with David’s fellow former professional footballer Jay Smith. Their clients paid £4,000 a year in return for access to its ‘black book’ of partners.
‘Because of Joanne’s background, she had contacts with celebrities, and I had contacts with sports personalities, then individuals within our circles just approached us,’ Smith explained at the time.
‘Some of them referred us to other brands, then other brands approached us — it grew pretty quickly.’ However, WeAreYourCity has now been struck off the official register of businesses at Companies House after failing to reveal vital financial information. It had no cash and owed creditors £1,700, according to its last accounts.
It’s just the latest setback to hit the Beckhams. On Thursday, Victoria axed plans to ask for taxpayer cash to pay dozens of staff at her loss-making label during the coronoavirus crisis. She had faced fierce criticism for drawing on the public purse.
The Beckhams have an estimated fortune of £335 million.
Victoria Beckham posted an image of her friends and family, including sister Louise Adams (centre left) on Instagram on Sunday
Comedian, actor, author, television presenter . . . sometimes it seems there’s nothing Stephen Fry can’t do.
The polymath has, however, admitted he just can’t learn to dance.
‘I abominate and loathe and fear and dread and hate dance more than anything in the world,’ he says.
‘I cannot bare it — it’s as if I’ve missed a whole load of lessons that everyone else has had.’
Fry adds: ‘Apart from everything else, even seeing other people dancing actually makes me cry with embarrassment.’
Surely, there’s only one thing for it: he needs to go on Strictly. Two left feet never stopped Ann Widdecombe or John Sergeant.
Winston Churchill’s great-granddaughter Flora Soames was heartbroken when her boyfriend, voice coach Anthony ‘Ant’ Gordon Lennox, died two years ago aged 48.
Happily, I can reveal the 38-year-old interior designer is smiling again after giving birth to her first child, a daughter she’s given the appropriate middle name Hope. ‘Lily Hope Maud was born at St Mary’s Paddington and we are thrilled to be back at home with her,’ Flora tells me. ‘She could not be more heavenly.’
The father is ceramic artist Alexander Macdonald-Buchanan.
Lumley’s Ab Fab £1m payout
Here’s why Joanna Lumley is keeping so cheerful during lockdown.
I can reveal that the actress, who turned 74 yesterday, paid herself an absolutely fabulous £1 million.
That’s how much the Ab Fab star received in the form of a dividend from the business she uses for ‘artistic creation’.
Newly published figures for Chrysolite Enterprises — which Lumley runs with her husband, the conductor Stephen Barlow — disclose that it made a profit of £2.6 million in 2019.
Trainspotting star Ewan McGregor dropped out of school aged 16, but his children are avidly pursuing the academic route to success. I hear his 18-year-old daughter, Jamyan, has been accepted into Mitchell College, a private liberal arts college in Connecticut. Not only that, but she’s been awarded a $15,000 [£12,000] scholarship.
That should let the canny Perth-born actor hang on to more of his reputed £36 million fortune.
At last, belated happy birthday news for HM
With her Birthday Parade called off, and even Royal Ascot due to take place behind closed doors, the Queen could be forgiven for feeling unamused.
Happily, the show will go on when it comes to one of her summer favourites, in her own ‘backyard’. I hear the Royal Windsor Horse Show will be held in virtual form later this month.
And, with more than 3,000 entries of horsemanship received from 81 countries so far, it will be bigger than usual. ‘Virtual Windsor 2020 has been phenomenally popular, showing that everyone can come together during these tough times,’ says show organiser Simon Brooks-Ward.
‘The amount of entries we have received has been astonishing, with the variety and level of competition extremely high.’
The Queen won the Pony and Dogcart class at the first show in 1943 and has since entered many homebred horses and ponies in the show.