Big names set to join Folbigg TV feeding frenzy

Feature films, streaming series, books, podcasts ... maybe even a sit down with Oprah Winfrey or Piers Morgan: you can expect to see and hear a lot more from newly pardoned Kathleen Folbigg in coming months as she adjusts to the daunting prospect of tragic global infamy.

But the 55-year-old, convicted in 2003 of killing her four infant children, is not facing it alone.

Kathleen Folbigg (right) reunites with friend Tracy Chapman after her release from prison this week.Credit: Nine News

They refer to themselves as “Team Folbigg”, an unlikely group of determined individuals who have formed a protective circle around the woman long described as “Australia’s worst female serial killer”.

Leading the charge has been one of Australia’s most influential business figures, Peter Yates, who for years rattled the tin to raise money from a host of prominent Australians to fund expert scientists to come to Australia to plead Folbigg’s case that she had been wrongly convicted.

Corporate advisor Mark Rudder, founding partner of high-powered public relations firm GRACosway, his government relations specialist and former ABC political journalist Brigid Glanville and her colleague Sarah Craig lobbied journalists to engage in the Folbigg story.

Criminal barrister Robert Cavanagh and solicitor Rhanee Rego continued to fight for Folbigg long after her story had been forgotten, along with her lifelong friend Tracy Chapman, whose farm, which neighbours Russell Crowe’s country estate, is providing Folbigg sanctuary. All of them have done it for free.

Kathleen Folbigg’s lawyer Rhanee Rego and friend Tracy Chapman hold a press conference on Tuesday.Credit: Rhett Wyman

But despite Folbigg’s release, their work is far from over. Apart from clearing Folbigg’s name and helping her adjust to modern life after 20 years in prison, there is an overwhelming level of media interest in her story.

Indeed, for some of them, like Folbigg’s media manager Nick Fordham it is just the beginning. He has been with Folbigg at Chapman’s farm this week following her release, during which a professional film crew shot the video of her thanking her supporters, the first time the world had seen or heard her in years.

Nick Fordham has been on Team Folbigg for 18 months.Credit: Steven Siewert

Fordham declined to comment to PS, however it is understood he started working with Team Folbigg at the start of 2022. He also met with her while she was serving her sentence at the Clarence Correctional Centre in Grafton several months ago.

On Tuesday, the Seven Network’s Spotlight program and its executive producer Mark Llewellyn emerged the victors against rival 60 Minutes on the Nine Network, the owner of this masthead, in what insiders have described as a bruising bidding war.

“There’s no rush to get it to air. It’s an extraordinary story, and what I am seeing from what we’ve been shooting is beyond my expectations,” Llewellyn told PS.

The Spotlight deal was struck by Fordham nearly a month ago, and while it has been reported the fee paid by Seven was $400,000 for the first exclusive interview PS has heard from sources close to the negotiations the final amount was at least double that, and possibly as high as $1 million. The interview is not likely to air for several weeks.

Nor does it appear likely that Folbigg’s payment would fall under the Proceeds of Crime legislation, despite her convictions yet to be formally quashed through court. A spokesperson from the NSW Attorney General Michael Daley’s office said that in such matters, “the particular circumstances of the case” would come into consideration.

The Seven deal was particularly disappointing for 60 Minutes reporter Tara Brown, who has done several stories on the Folbigg case over many years, including an investigation on the breakthrough science in 2021 which ultimately set her free.

International media players have also entered the fray, with names like Winfrey and Morgan in the mix of potential interviewers.

Fordham is the brother of 2GB breakfast host Ben Fordham. His late father, John Fordham, founded the media management firm he now runs.

He also represents Lisa Wilkinson, who featured prominently in last Sunday’s polarising Spotlight interview with former political staffer Bruce Lehrmann. The irony that Fordham was cutting a deal on behalf of his new client with the same show that was carving up one of his oldest, has not been lost on his rivals.

The media potential of the Folbigg story in the streaming age is vast. Recently, Fordham has been negotiating content deals with streaming giants including Netflix and Paramount+, which bought the multi-million-dollar John Ibrahim series Last King Of The Cross.

Fordham is listed as a co-executive producer on the series, which was created with media executive Mark Fennessy’s Helium outfit. Fordham also has producing credits on the globally syndicated Netflix TV series Outback Wrangler and Wild Territory featuring Matt Wright, another client who has generated headlines off-camera following the helicopter crash that killed his friend and co-star Chris “Willow” Wilson in February 2022.

Society wedding in the City of Love

Chicken or boeuf? All roads lead to Paris for next week’s society wedding of Sydney-based celebrity chef Guillaume Brahimi and chicken heiress Tamie Ingham in what sounds like an affair fit for a poultry princess.

Oui do! Guillaume Brahimi.Credit: Nic Walker

Sydney socialite Tamie is a grandchild of the late thoroughbred horse racing figure Jack Ingham, who is the brother of billionaire chook baron Bob.

PS can reveal the wedding is taking place in the sumptuous Musee Rodin in Paris. In 1916, a year before his death, Auguste Rodin bequeathed all his works and possessions to the French state which, in exchange, purchased the elegant Hôtel Biron and committed to turning it into a museum dedicated to the artist.

With iconic and priceless pieces, such as The Kiss and The Thinker, housed in the museum, the couple’s guests, including Lachlan and Sarah Murdoch, James Packer, Karl (who will MC) and Jasmine Stefanovic, Seek founder Paul Bassat, outgoing AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan, designer Tamsin and her tailor husband Patrick Johnson and Michael and Lisa Wipfli, along with various members of the extended Ingham clan, are clearly in for a cultural treat.

In 2013 the Inghams sold their business for $850 million.

It will be the first of three upcoming “destination weddings” planned for the European summer for the Inghams, with Tamie’s brother Johnny and sister Katie Ingham all set to tie the knot with their respective partners over the coming weeks.

Jasmine Stefanovic and Tamie Ingham.

Johnny will marry social media influencer Rey Vakili, who once worked as an assistant to Vogue’s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Taormina, Italy, also the location for the second season of The White Lotus.

Then it’s off to Tuscany where Katie Ingham will marry Ali Rosenberg.

Dinnigan shuts up shop

The Southern Highlands tweed and twin-set brigade have been clutching their pearls following the closure of Collette Dinnigan’s homewares boutique in the old Mittagong Post Office, barely a year after it launched amid much fanfare.

Dinnigan, understood to be in Europe, had told friends the shop, which sold her bespoke range including fragrances, candles and homewares, was an “experiment”, and one which apparently caused the former fashion designer considerable headaches when it came to finding staff, with Dinnigan herself often manning the counter.

Collette Dinnigan has shut shop in Mittagong.Credit: Bec Parsons

However, the year-long lease has ended and now Dinnigan, who owns an expansive estate in nearby Bowral, is selling online her hand-printed Belgian linen curtains, scented candles, ceramics, cushions made from her exclusive archival fabrics and antiques.

Showbiz legend’s art auction

Australian showbiz blueblood Jim Sharman is auctioning 47 works from his personal art collection with all proceeds going to seed the creation of the NIDA Future Centre.

Sharman, the son of the iconic travelling showman who bore the same name, has directed on stage and screen, classics including the Rocky Horror Picture Show, Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar.

Stage and screen director Jim Sharman is selling his art collection to fund a new generation of creatives at NIDA.Credit: Louie Douvis

His art collection includes a masterwork by Tom Polo, major works from Bill Henson’s career, Archibald-Prize winner Nigel Milsom, Michael Ramsden, Geoffrey Proud, Andrew Purvis and selected stage and film posters, which will go under the hammer at Shapiro Auctioneers’ Annex Gallery in Chippendale on June 20.

“I enjoy art and artists across a wide spectrum and over the years have gifted works to public galleries,” said Sharman, who graduated from NIDA in 1966.

“I’m not a collector in the commercial sense, these works were acquired because I knew the artist, or I loved the work, but mostly because I was inspired by it. I’ve enjoyed them, and now it’s time to share them with others – past and present artists helping to fund artists of the future.”

Throughout his trailblazing career Sharman directed more than 80 productions, including Hair in Sydney, Tokyo and Boston, Jesus Christ Superstar in Australia and nine years in London’s West End and The Rocky Horror Show in the UK, USA and Australia, along with its film adaptations.

Michael Ryan and Zoe Bingley-Pullin in 2019.Credit: Marco Del Grande

Dog house for dog food business

He’s the man who got his best mate Hugh Jackman into shape for his Wolverine films, but Sydney celebrity fitness guru Michael Ryan’s foray into the pet food business, in which he also enlisted his television nutritionist wife Zoe Bingley-Pullin and controversial chef Pete Evans, has ended up in the dog house.

“I’ve been busting my gut with this for two years and we are very proud of the product we have created. It has a loyal following, but the reality is material costs have gone through the roof. We wanted to create an ethical product with lots of real meat, but it just wasn’t sustainable without a lot more investment,” Ryan explained.

Ryan’s company Healthy Every Day Pets Pty Ltd is now in the process of voluntary liquidation, with creditors, including Ryan and his wife, owed almost $2 million.

“It’s a real shame. We had a little shop in Potts Point that was very successful, but when you’re up against multinationals it becomes impossible. There is a good business here, but it needs a lot of money.”

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