Annette Sharp: Vanessa Jacobs Fennell and Eleni Taylor on the Housewives shortlist

Two seasoned socialites are in the sights of Real Housewives of Sydney producers, and it’s possible the gal pals bonded over the break-up of investment banker Freddie Blencke and Annabelle Price, writes Annette Sharp.

The shortlist of glamorous contenders for the latest series of Real Housewives of Sydney continues to grow, with two seasoned socialites currently in producers’ sights.

As revealed here last week, TV bosses are down to a list of 12 candidates for five available spots on the returning Foxtel reality series.

With Nicole Gazal O’Neil and Krissy Marsh returning, that leaves vacancies for departed Housewives Lisa Oldfield, Athena X Levendi, Victoria Rees, Matty Samaei and Melissa Tkautz, not all of whom were happy to be benched.

This column can now add two new names to the list of frontrunners.

They are gal pals Vanessa Jacobs Fennell and Eleni Taylor, who last year may have bonded over the break-up of investment banker Freddie Blencke and Annabelle Price.

Vanessa Jacobs Fennell (left) and Eleni Taylor are two names being touted as potential new Real Housewives of Sydney

Fennell, a charity fundraiser who has been on committees for Sydney Children’s Hospital and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, was, until three years ago, married to private equity worker Tom Fennell, managing director of Tama Capital.

Tom was caught up in the ugly breakdown of the Blencke/Price marriage last year after it emerged 30-year-old Price had moved into Tom’s Rose Bay apartment with her and Blencke’s two young children.

Eleni Taylor is the ex-wife of Sydney construction boss Mark Taylor. Picture: Facebook

According to reports, Tom was off getting some powder, i.e. skiing, at the time with neurosurgeon Tim Steele, who is also no stranger to scandal.

This followed the explosive breakdown of the Blencke-Price marriage in the months prior, which may have contributed to Blencke facing a police charge for allegedly assaulting Price at a children’s hospital.

(Blencke was given a 12-month conditional release order concerning the assault, which coincided with other charges including one of high-range drink-driving, for which he was banned from driving for nine months, after blowing 0.183.)

The popular Vanessa, who has two children with her ex, grew up in South Africa, where she studied commerce at university before going into finance and later funds management.

During her marriage, the Fennells settled in Tamarama.

The Fennells’ family home made headlines in 2021 when Vanessa was forced to threaten legal action against a McGrath Double Bay real estate agent who, she claimed, had been harassing her to sell the beach house.

The Fennells were at the time embroiled in a protracted separation settlement.

Tom and Vanessa Fennell in 2016. Picture: Fiora Sacco

Despite escalating offers from a keen buyer, the last of which valued the property at $12.5m, Fennell insisted the home was not for sale and threatened to take out an AVO against the estate agent.

That property has more recently been transferred into Vanessa’s name.

Tom is a descendant of Sir Willian Tyree, the pioneer electrical engineer who established transformer company Tyree Industries at a small shop on Parramatta Road, which went on to become the biggest company of its type in the southern hemisphere, making multi-millionaires of the Tyree family.

Meanwhile, Vanessa’s friend Eleni Taylor is the ex-wife of Sydney construction boss Mark Taylor, of Taylor Construction, who also partly owns luxury charter boat company One O One Charters.

Proving everyone in Sydney’s eastern suburbs really does know each other, it was on Taylor’s charter boat in January last year that Annabelle Price became embroiled in a misunderstanding over a pair of sunglasses.

The sunglasses in question, as it turned out, belonged to Mark Taylor’s new girlfriend, Anna Kedzior.

As revealed last week, another striking candidate for the new Real Housewives of Sydney cast is fashion and lifestyle consultant, and self-described “mini skirt expert”, Victoria Montano.

Montano, we’ve learned, is married to Tim Odilla Maher, the CEO of ASX-listed debt company FSA Group.

Krissy Marsh and Nicole O’Neil are returning to the show …

… and may be joined by shoe designer Terry Biviano. Pictures: AAP

In 2016, Maher and Montano bought the Darling Point home of Charlie and Ellie Aitken for $10.3m — that was back when the Aitkens were still courting investors for their investment management fund AIM and seemingly still happily married. They split in 2021.

Other Sydney identities who this month auditioned for Housewives include former WAG Terry Biviano, style commentator Melissa Hoyer, and former TV darling Sally Obermeder who now spruiks Super Green wellness products.

ARTISTS LINE UP TO SAY I LOVE YOU TO GEYER IN MUSICAL FAREWELL

Renee Geyer’s muso mates will gather in Melbourne on Tuesday, April 4, to conduct a memorial service for the singer, who died last month following complications from hip surgery.

The memorial will be held at the National Theatre in St Kilda from 6.30pm.

As Australia prepares to mourn the death of the nation’s darling Olivia Newton John at a memorial service broadcast on Sunday from 4pm on competing TV networks, a host of rock and pop legends have put their hands up to farewell musical rebel Geyer, who died aged just 69.

A who’s who of Australian music will pay tribute to Renee Geyer.

Leading the line-up will be Paul Kelly, Russell Morris, Kevin Borich, Deborah Conway, Ross Wilson, Rebecca Bernard and Geyer’s house band.

Record executive and former business manager Bernard Galbally and TV presenter Richard Wilkins will share MC duties.

During a six-decade career Geyer, whose musical style bridged jazz, blues, R&B and soul, became a household name with songs like the incredible anthem It’s A Man’s Man’s World and love songs Say I Love You, and Heading In The Right Direction.

Remembered by American blues singer guitarist Bonnie Raitt as “one of the greatest singers I’ve ever known” and by 1970s pop queen Marcia Hines as “a game changer” with “one of the greatest voices I have ever heard”, Geyer was a sometimes difficult and temperamental role model for female empowerment in the Australian music business long before the current Zeitgeist existed.

A limited number of tickets are available for fans and members of the public to attend the memorial.

The ticket revenue will offset the cost of staging the event.

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