Every family has its secrets. Few, however, can match the confusing truth that remained unknown to Polly Fry until she was 45: that her father wasn’t Jeremy Fry, inventor and scion of the Fry chocolate empire – but Fry’s best friend, Princess Margaret’s former husband, Antony Armstrong -Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon.
But now Polly has a secret she’s only too happy to share. I can reveal that seven years after she wrote about her hopes of finding “a Mr. Darcy”, she has found him – in the form of the legendary “reputation manager” Abel Hadden.
Hadden, whose clients include the Sultan of Brunei, confirms that he and Polly are very happily involved. ‘Yes, it is true. We’ve known each other for about 18 months,” he tells me.
But that’s not all. “We’re planning a summer wedding,” adds Hadden, who, like his fiancé, is in his 60s.
“I proposed in Cornwall between Christmas and New Year’s. We are absolutely thrilled.”
Polly has a secret she’s only too happy to share. I can reveal that seven years after she wrote about her hopes of finding “a Mr. Darcy”, she found him
Friends and family will feel that a new and happier chapter in Polly’s life is no more than she deserves. After the death of her mother, Camilla, and aware of “endless rumours” — and after “years of staring at myself in the mirror and then at photos of the two possible candidates to play my father” — she decided to find out the truth.
She persuaded Lord Snowdon to join her in a DNA test. The rumors were true: Polly, who was born when Snowdon was still honeymooning with Queen Elizabeth’s sister, was actually his daughter.
He invited her to call him “Pops” while he publicly denied paternity.
It wasn’t until 2008, three years after Jeremy Fry’s death, that he finally admitted to being Polly’s father. But Polly was not mentioned in Snowdon’s will in 2017.
In contrast, he left his illegitimate son Jasper £250,000 as a result of his affair with journalist Melanie Cable-Alexander.
Polly, whose husband, businessman Barnaby Higson, had left her by that time to find ‘new pastures’, nonetheless attended Snowdon’s memorial service.
When she gets married this summer there will be no shortage of family. Hadden, whose first wife was Belinda, daughter of Tory MP Sir Reginald Bennett, points out: “We have nine children and 12 grandchildren together.”
When Basia Briggs’ husband Richard died in 2021 at the age of 76, she might have expected the property developer’s friends to flock to her and support her. However, the socialite insists that too many of these men simply saw an opportunity for “leisure adultery” with her.
“Invitations from longtime male friends of my husband seemed friendly at first,” says Prince Michael of Kent’s pal. However, after she accepted an offer for dinner from one at the Colbert restaurant in Sloane Square, west London, he refused to walk her home when she declined his offer of “snuggles” at Dukes Hotel in Mayfair.
After having lunch with another who accompanied her to her house nearby, she was asked “if he could come in and give me a hug”. Basia replied, “Sorry, I don’t do hugs.”
Speaking to The Oldie magazine, she adds, “A few days later, I received an email asking me to pay half the restaurant bill.” Of course, free lunches don’t exist anymore these days.
Pictured: Basia Briggs attends a private view of Maxim’s ‘Infinite Drama’ at Miart Gallery
Jeremy Irons recently told me he no longer wanted to take up acting, stating, “At my age, I did everything.”
Hopefully the 74-year-old Oscar winner is more excited about his upcoming role as a grandfather.
I can inform you that his son Max, 37, a fellow actor who starred in the hit BBC historical drama The White Queen, is eagerly awaiting the birth of his first child.
His wife, Sophie Pera, 38, creative director of Tatler magazine, is heavily pregnant. “Say hello to my little friend,” she tells her friends, sharing this photo of her growing bump. ‘Due any day now.’
Max, who married Sophie in Oxfordshire in 2019, has previously spoken about his hopes for a family. “I’ve been thinking about kids,” he said in 2020. “I would love a child, and I know my wife certainly would.”
Jeremy Irons’ son Max, 37, a fellow actor who starred in BBC historic hit The White Queen, is eagerly awaiting the birth of his first child
Some women with a fiancé in prison would hold back.
Not former Made In Chelsea star Victoria Baker-Harber, who reveals she’s filming a TV show about art dealer Inigo Philbrick, who’s serving seven years in a US prison for fraud. “I’m making a documentary,” the socialite tells me at a red carpet event in Kensington, west London.
“It’s about my fiancé and his time in prison — it’s wild.”
Philbrick is fully behind the project. “He’s for it,” she says. “It was his idea. We will start filming in the next few weeks.”
Olympic sailor daughter Baker-Harber, 34, has a two-year-old daughter with Philbrick, 36.
“He didn’t murder anyone,” she adds. “He raised his hands and admitted what he had done and takes full responsibility and accountability, but everyone makes mistakes.”
Although Jamie Lee Curtis is officially Lady Haden-Guest thanks to the title her husband, film director Christopher Guest, inherited, Jamie Lee Curtis is refreshingly unpretentious.
Not for her a snooty attitude towards dealing with the press and conducting promotional interviews in what the Trading Places and A Fish Called Wanda star calls the “show-off business”.
64-year-old Curtis, who was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Everything Everywhere All At Once, says of her work in the film industry: “I love all of it and I love the promotion of it.
“I understand it’s a business. They cannot do our work without you as a listener, observer or buyer. It is a partnership between media and art.
“And by the way, I love it when I read an actor or director saying they ‘don’t do press.’ Cops***. Because I promise you they will.’
The pomposity of certain authors was stirred up by Zadie Smith.
“Sometimes I think we shouldn’t take political lessons from novelists because we can be idiosyncratic as a race,” the White Teeth author said at a Night of Ideas at the Institut Francais in London.
“I have no political imagination; I have a novelist fantasy.
“I’m also aware that I’m quirky when I hear people talk about wanting to belong and to belong to their people.”
She adds, “That’s always going to be an issue between me and people who genuinely believe there is such a thing as a female soul or a black soul.
“I don’t believe in those things – I believe in culture, oppression, structural situations, but not in essential human qualities.”
When she was engaged to Orange Is The New Black star Ruby Rose, they were one of Hollywood’s hottest couples, but now Roald Dahl’s granddaughter Phoebe has surprised her friends by finding love with a French man.
The fashion designer, 34, is dating a guy named Balthazar Le Bret.
“He’s from Paris and we sailed across the Atlantic together last year,” Phoebe tells me.
Phoebe – whose mother is Lucy Dahl, daughter of the popular children’s book author – has shared photos of her kissing Balthazar (right), whom she calls her “boyfriend”.
“He’s very reserved, so she can’t say much, but she’s in love,” one of her friends tells me.
Phoebe lives in St. Barts, West Indies, where she teaches yoga, and is the founder of ethical fashion label Faircloth & Supply.
Phoebe had said “it was love at first sight” when she met Ruby Rose (above) at a barbecue in LA in 2014, which was difficult because Dahl had a girlfriend at the time. She ended that relationship that same night and a few days later broke into the Australian actress’ home at 6am and waved flowers. Ruby, 36, proposed to Phoebe after three months.
However, they broke up in 2015 and Phoebe then dated DJ and former model Tatiana de Leon.
Phoebe, a graduate of Wildwood, the progressive liberal arts school in Los Angeles, said she doesn’t define her sexuality, explaining, “I don’t feel the need to put a label on it.
“I don’t think love is limitless.
“I grew up in a family that believed that.
“At my school you could be whoever you wanted without judgement.”
Roald Dahl’s granddaughter Phoebe has surprised friends when she was in love with a French man
Most moms still feel exhausted three months after giving birth, but Cressida Bonas seems to have mastered the art of multitasking.
The 33-year-old actress managed to walk her dachshund, Budgie Bear, near her home in west London while also carrying her son Wilbur and a shopping bag. And all that over a drink. Her tot’s tiny feet are dangling from a baby carrier in a pair of suede ugg boots.
Last month, I revealed that Cressida and her husband, Harry Wentworth-Stanley, 33, a partner in a real estate investment firm, had touchingly given Wilbur the middle name James. Harry’s brother James tragically died at the age of just 21.
Cressida appears in the memoirs of Prince Harry, who was her boyfriend for two years until 2014.
Cressida Bonas, 33, managed to walk her dachshund Budgie Bear near her home in west London while carrying her son Wilbur
Dame Sheila Hancock formed an amusing double with boyfriend Gyles Brandreth on Celebrity Gogglebox, but Channel 4, she claims, fired her after just one series for complaining about the dirt she was supposed to watch.
“I used to love doing it with Gyles, but they fired me — well, they didn’t reclaim me,” says the 89-year-old actress, who is the widow of Morse star John Thaw. “It was because there were a lot of shows with penises.
“Eventually I called the editing lady and said, ‘I’m enjoying the show, but do you think we can have anything other than penises?’
‘She was pretty angry as if you shouldn’t say anything and they didn’t ask me back.’