AVO doesn’t stop Anthony Bell spending special time with his kids

EMBATTLED celebrity accountant Anthony Bell saw his children yesterday for the first time since the shocking public breakdown of his marriage.

EMBATTLED celebrity accountant Anthony Bell saw his children yesterday for the first time since the shocking public breakdown of his marriage.

The 44-year old, who has agreed in court orders to stay away from the $12.5 million family home in Watsons Bay, spent the morning with his two young daughters — Charlize, 5, and Thea, 2 — taking them to morning tea with his sister at a patisserie in Vaucluse.

Having previously escaped to Russell Crowe’s Nana Glen property, Bell — who was dubbed “Mr Monopoly” by ex-girlfriend Charlotte Dawson — is now understood to be living with friends in Watsons Bay after his wife, Kelly Landry, took out an apprehended ­violence order, sparking a bitter separation.

Anthony Bell with his two daughters Charlize and Thea in Vaucluse. Picture:

The couple’s legal teams are working on finalising ­interim custody arrangements although the girls will live primarily at their home with Ms Landry.

“He will try to see them as much as he can,” a friend of Mr Bell said yesterday.

Friends of both Ms Landry and Mr Bell have told The Sunday Telegraph tensions between the pair were increasingly apparent over ­recent years, although they sought to keep up appearances.

“They were like a Stepford family,” a female friend of Mr Bell said, adding the pair tried to conceal their growing marital tensions for the sake of their children.

“It was all smoke and mirrors.”

Kelly Landry walks with her two daughters in Watsons Bay. Picture: Dylan Robinson

Since their private war became public, supporters of the couple have spoken out in defence of their friends but the couple has publicly remained tight-lipped.

Speaking for the first time yesterday, Mr Bell said: “I can’t participate in anything that is going to torture my little girls any more than they have already been subjected to.”

A close friend of Ms Landry ­described her as a “terrific, devoted” mother who did most of the parenting.

He said Ms Landry often holidayed with the children alone, and one of issues between her and Mr Bell was the lack of time he spent with the children, preferring to spend weekends and downtime on his boat or on trips with his mates.

“He has rarely been on a family holiday with them,” the friend said.

Mr Bell’s friends claim that soon after the interim AVO was lodged Ms Landry made contact with her husband with a list of demands for a settlement, including the family home and an unlimited platinum credit card.

The couple during happier times. Picture: Tim Hunter

However friends of Ms Landry say the only demand from her legal team was that Mr Bell maintain financial support for the children and give her access to money while their issues were sorted out because he controlled all household finances.

“She only wants what she is entitled to and what is best for the children,” the friend said.

It is understood there was no prenuptial agreement in place.

Long before meeting Ms Landry in 2010, Mr Bell played hard as the $100 million man about town.

Mr Bell is the leading figure in Sydney’s ultimate boys’ club, a flashy brat pack of sports and television stars including ex-cricketer Michael Clarke, retired league players Anthony Minichiello and Luke Ricketson, former rugby union star Phil Waugh, Today anchor Karl Stefanovic, and ex-swimmer Geoff Huegill.

The ultimate boys’ club: Karl Stefanovic, Anthony Minichiello and Anthony Bell.

When the pack gets together, women — especially wives — are an optional extra, but Channel 9 sports reporter Erin Molan has found a place in the crew in recent months after Mr Bell’s ex-girlfriend Laura Csortan retired from the scene when she fell pregnant.

While half of the pack has gone to ground, failing to respond to calls for comment, or in some cases simply hanging up the phone, others have spent the week phoning journalists in a bid to persuade them what a good, honest and generous guy their “Belly” really is.

They’ve formed this bond after numerous lavish parties on Ghost II, Mr Bell’s multimillion-dollar superyacht with wait staff, French champagne and, most crucially, privacy. The parties over the years are said to have been legendary, involving some of the biggest names in sport and TV.

Kelly Landry and Anthony Bell now see their children separately. Picture: Tim Hunter

Those to have been regulars out on the Harbour include Lance “Buddy” Franklin, Waugh, Minichiello, Seven’s Larry Emdur, boxer Danny Green, motorcyclist Mick Doohan, and real estate agent John McGrath.

But it’s Mr Bell and Clarke who have been the tightest out of the brotherhood. The pair in recent years have often been spotted together around Sydney’s most fashionable watering holes, such as Mrs Sippy and Pelicano, surrounded by glamorous, attentive women. These are boys’ nights — their wives are rarely invited. But it hasn’t always been this way.

The glory days were captured in a bunch of Instagram snaps circa 2013 when wives were allowed on one of the crew’s most lavish holidays — a yachting jaunt to the Mediterranean. Sydney social elites, including the Bells, hired the luxury, 49m yacht Nassima, which is chartered for a cool $280,000 a week plus expenses.

TV personality Erin Molan pictured aboard Perpetual Loyal with Anthony Bell.

Among those soaking in the European sun and taking advantage of the yacht’s six bedrooms, gym and jacuzzi, were Bell and his wife Kelly Landry — “Kelly and Belly”, to their friends — socialite couple Kate Waterhouse and Luke Ricketson, Emdur and his wife Sylvie, and Grant Vandenberg and his wife Lisa.

But much has changed since those glorious days.

The antics of Bell’s boys have taken a toll on some of the squad’s marriages. Stefanovic and his wife Cassandra Thorburn separated last year, and are engaged in a bitter battle over their $8 million north shore home. Several other marriages are said to be under strain.

At the start “Belly and Kelly” seemed a solid match. The beautiful TV star and the self-made millionaire met in 2010, after being set up by Ms Landry’s fellow Getaway presenter Natalie Gruzlewski. His previous girlfriend Charlotte Dawson told friends she only learnt of the end of her own secretive relationship with the man she affectionately dubbed Mr Monopoly after seeing him with Ms Landry at the Logies.

Anthony Minichiello, Geoff Huegill, Karl Stefanovic, Michael Clarke and Anthony Bell. Picture: Richard Dobson

They married within a year at a secluded ceremony in New Zealand (the bride wore Givenchy).

But in recent photos Ms Landry, diagnosed with a serious heart condition when she was pregnant with their first child, has looked thin and anxious.

In a 2015 interview she said her husband had “made adjustments” to his work-life ­balance.

In comments that have not been previously published, Ms Landry joked her husband had taken “shares in the Prince of Wales carpark” because of all the time he spent there when she was hospitalised.

And he had “very quietly” adjusted the amount of time he devoted to his accountancy business, Bell Partners, she said, to make more time for his family.