Bond girl Olga Kurylenko, who is fighting to overcome coronavirus, is also nursing a broken heart.
I hear that the 40-year-old, who played the femme fatale opposite Daniel Craig in 2008’s Quantum Of Solace, split up with her boyfriend, the Argentine actor Ben Cura, 31, before she contracted the illness.
I hear that the 40-year-old, who played the femme fatale opposite Daniel Craig in 2008’s Quantum Of Solace, split up with her boyfriend, the Argentine actor Ben Cura, 31, before she contracted the illness
‘They wanted to make it work but it proved too difficult, with their jobs pulling them in different directions,’ confirms a pal.
‘Olga will bounce back, though, as always.’
Bond girl Olga Kurylenko, who is fighting to overcome coronavirus, is also nursing a broken heart
The Ukraine-born French actress — who has a fouryear-old son, Alex, with Old Harrovian journalist Max Benitz — met Ben on the set of the action film Gun Shy three years ago.
Ben, the son of celebrated tenor Jose Cura, was previously married to Andrea Deck, who played one of the Queen’s best friends, Jeannie, the Dowager Countess of Carnarvon, in Netflix hit The Crown.
Amid all the doom and gloom, Princess Diana’s godson Jack Bartholomew is planning to make sure next year is a happy one.
Wine business director Jack, 30, has proposed to PR woman Rosie Riall, 27. His mother, Carolyn, was one of Diana’s closest pals and lived with her before she married Prince Charles.
‘They make a great couple,’ Jack’s father, the society party organiser William Bartholomew, tells me.
‘Carolyn and I are delighted and we look for ward to their wedding very much next year.’
Dad’s pleased as punch: Clarkson’s girl gets engaged
Jeremy Clarkson is thrilled to hear the sound of wedding bells. His elder daughter, blogger and author Emily, has got engaged
Usually more excited by the revving of an engine, petrolhead Jeremy Clarkson is thrilled to hear the sound of wedding bells. His elder daughter, blogger and author Emily, has got engaged.
‘I’m absolutely bowled over and thrilled and delighted,’ The Grand Tour cohost tells me. ‘I’m bouncing with happiness and champagne right now. We’re all sitting round the kitchen table.’
Emily, 25, whose mother is Jeremy’s estranged second wife and former manager Frances Cain, is to wed Alex Andrew, 26, a Dublin-born musician turned-publicist she met at Glastonbury.
Here she is showing off her diamond ring with emeralds set underneath to represent Ireland.
Jeremy adds, jokingly: ‘He didn’t ask me for permission for my daughter’s hand, he just told me he was doing it. He’s Irish — they don’t understand etiquette.’
The Queen of historical fiction, Dame Hilary Mantel, appears to treat fellow novelist Martin Amis with lofty disdain.
Asked about Amis’s remark that ageing writers are ‘past their prime’, she remarks: ‘I guess it depends what “old age” means, and when your career started.’ Amis shot to fame aged 23 when his debut novel, The Rachel Papers, came out.
And Dame Hilary comments: ‘If you publish very young, you might well come to a point where you have nothing much left to say, and it’s gracious to recognise it.’
In what could be seen as a further pop at Amis, who took drugs when he was the literary world’s enfant terrible, she adds in Spear’s magazine: ‘And it depends what you have done to conserve your faculties. I would guess that substance abuse and complacency damage a writer’s capacity more than the simple process of getting older.’ Ouch.
Pirates star Keira’s £3.5million treasure
Keira Knightley was three when she told her parents she needed an agent
Keira Knightley was three when she told her parents she needed an agent. They agreed when she was seven — since when her piggybank has never been empty.
Now it’s fuller than ever. I can disclose the company which handles the Pirates Of The Caribbean star’s earnings made a £3.5million profit last year.
So she can buy herself a nice pressie on her 35th birthday next Thursday.
(Very) modern manners
Coronavirus might have ruined the party scene but it’s done wonders for community spirit, according to celebrated interior designer and style arbiter Nicky Haslam.
‘The virus has been good for human relationships,’ he tells me. ‘Me and my neighbours keep bolstering each other up and asking how we are doing.’
A London party is never complete unless Haslam, 80, turns up but he admits: ‘I’m rather enjoying it [the crisis] because things are being cancelled and I don’t have to go out too much.’