Duchess of York to head Down Under to tell her ‘secrets’

Six thousand bums on seats across three cities: that’s the measure for Australia’s love for Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson, who is coming to Sydney for a warts-and-all series of tell-alls in February.

And she’s set to pocket a fee estimated to be more than $250,000.

Sarah Ferguson at Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan’s wedding in 2018.Credit: AP

Ticket prices range from $99 to $188 across three 2000-seat theatres in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane for her upcoming In Conversation With shows featuring the duchess chatting with Ray Martin. Promoters are confident the once-maligned royal, and her treasure trove of home movies and private family photo albums, will be a sell-out.

Promoter Simon Baggs has been negotiating with the duchess – who recently recreated herself as a bestselling Mills and Boon romance novelist – to do the tour, the first of its kind she has done since the pandemic. He remains confident it will be a success, both reputationally for the duchess and financially for his outfit, Lateral Events.

“We call this concept intellectual entertainment, the idea revolving around globally renowned people on stage sharing things the audience might not have known or thought of before. Sarah is very engaging and entertaining, and we believe there is a lot of her story that people don’t really know,” Baggs told PS.

The Duchess of York and ex-husband Prince Andrew pictured together at Ascot Racecourse in 2019.Credit: AP

Ferguson’s last visit to Sydney was in 2016, when she caught up with her Sydney-based sister Jane Ferguson Luedecke and attended a charity fundraiser at St Vincent’s Hospital, although over the years our town has been a lucrative destination for the royal.

In 1996, she was lured to Coogee with a big cheque from Foxtel when she plugged the cable into the home of the pay TV company’s 10,000th subscriber.

According to London’s Telegraph, since her divorce from Prince Andrew in 1996, Fergie has made up to $4 million a year from a variety of roles, including as an ambassador for Weight Watchers and Wedgwood, the latter deal resulting in PS interviewing her during another trip to Sydney, where she proceeded to balance on one foot atop a tiny porcelain teacup to illustrate how sturdy it was.

But there have been financial low points too. She lost more than $6 million with the collapse of Hartmoor, her US lifestyle and wellness company, which followed the 1992 toe-sucking incident. Then there was the disastrous tabloid sting when she was caught out trying to sell access to her former husband – although how much that would now be worth, given recent events involving Prince Andrew, remains questionable.

The late Princess Margaret famously wrote to her in the late 1990s: “You have done more to bring shame on the royal family than could ever have been imagined. Not once have you hung your head in embarrassment, even for a minute. Clearly you have never considered the damage you are doing us all. How dare you discredit us?”

Comedy calls for Jemima Khan

The Duchess of York is not the only blue blood due in Sydney. PS can reveal Jemima Khan, the aristocratic British heiress, one-time socialite, former bestie of Princess Diana and ex-wife of Pakistani cricketing legend Imran Khan, is coming to town.

Jemima Khan is coming to Sydney to promote her new movie, a romantic comedy about arranged marriages, set between London and Lahore.Credit: AFP

Khan will be in Sydney in January to promote the new film she wrote and produced, called What’s Love Got To Do With It? It’s a romantic comedy about arranged marriages, set between London and Lahore and starring Emma Thompson, Lily James, Shazad Latif and veteran Indian actor Shabana Azmi.

Khan, who made news for pulling out as a contributor to Netflix’s The Crown over concerns about how Diana would be depicted, will be in Sydney with the film’s director Shekhar Kapur, who also directed Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth.

Housewives evicted

A month after PS revealed secret meetings were under way across Double Bay to find the next batch of Real Housewives of Sydney, it appears only two of the original line-up – glamazon property developer Krissy Marsh and former beauty queen Nicole Gazal – look set to return.

The original Real Housewives of Sydney: Matty Samaei, Lisa Oldfield, Melissa Tkautz, Krissy Marsh, Nicole O’Neil, Athena X Levendi and Victoria Rees.Credit: Foxtel

Victoria Rees told PS she had been texting producers, but her son, now 19, had urged her not to do it as “he says it’s embarrassing”, while the likes of Lisa Oldfield, Matty Samaei, Athena X Levendi and Melissa Tkautz look destined to be put out to pasture.

An entirely new batch of wives is being cooked up, with whispers celebrity hairdresser Joh Bailey’s business partner Marilyn Koch has “screen tested” and would make a great addition, given their salon is gossip central for Sydney’s well-heeled eastern suburbs social set. Other names in the mix include Roxy Jacenko and Sheeva Tavakoli, wife of celebrity cosmetic surgeon and Double Bay’s “Breast Master”, Kourosh Tavakoli.

Gossip central: Marilyn Koch and Joh Bailey.

Foxtel’s contract with NBC Universal, which owns the global franchise, was due to expire in a few months. However, the broadcaster has exercised its option rights, given it was likely to have been quickly snapped up by a rival.

Dining with the stars

Australian food royalty – including Quay’s Peter Gilmore, Nomad’s Jacqui Challinor and Josh Niland from Fish Butchery – turned up for one of the smartest soirees in Sydney this year at the neoclassical temple of Italian gastronomy, Seta Sydney.

Singer Amy Manford serenaded the room on Monday night at the epicurean convergence for the naming of the S. Pellegrino Young Chef Academy winner from nine finalists. Robin Wagner won the prize for his dish of smoked celeriac, Granny Smith apple and crispy taro. Wagner, who is sous chef at Penfolds Magill Estate in South Australia, heads to Milan next year to represent Australasia at the prestigious global cooking awards.

Serenaded: Singer Amy Manford performing at Seta Sydney on Monday night.

Sadly, not so impressive were the dehydrated carrots and broccoli bits circulating around the curious crowd at last week’s bizarre HermesFit party at the Hordern Pavilion. PS hears the venue appeared to be packed with social media freeloaders and a few bewildered paying customers who had gathered for an extravagant ode to keeping trim and carrying $100,000 handbags.

PS hears several ravenous guests, fuelled on bubbles, had to decamp to McDonald’s after leaving the event early – although perhaps some had smuggled a few burgers into the toilets to devour away from prying eyes. That might explain why so many of the cubicles had multiple occupants throughout the evening. Déclassé, darlings.

Trying to fly the fashion flag

A request to hoist a flag promoting a new Australian Fashion trademark logo has resulted in millionaire landlord Theo Onisforou, one of the industry’s most influential figures, launching a blistering attack on the Australian Fashion Council, which he says has been “held hostage” by conflicting corporate interests.

Theo Onisforou outside The Intersection shopping precinct in Paddington.

Last week the Australian Fashion Council launched a government-sponsored campaign to distinguish and promote Australian fashion brands, which includes a new Australian Fashion trademark logo.

Onisforou approached the AFC to propose flying the logo on flags - at his own cost - outside his many shopfronts, but his idea hit a wall after he refused a condition to include the campaign’s sponsor on the signage: rival retail landlord Vicinity, which owns the QVB.

“Unless I am mistaken, you are telling us that the Australian Fashion trademark is a prisoner of Vicinity shopping centres’ wishes and cannot be used by anyone wishing to promote the Australian Fashion trademark, unless Vicinity takes their pound of flesh?” Onisforou fumed in one missive to AFC executives, who did not respond to PS’s queries.

“This is simply breathtakingly inappropriate and improper.”

Besties take Manhattan

What better way to mend a broken heart than jetting off to America with your recently single heiress bestie?

Besties in the Big Apple: Julie Bishop and heiress Rhonda Wyllie.Credit: Instagram

Julie Bishop and fellow Perth socialite Rhonda Wyllie have been hitting the cocktail bars of Manhattan, and forgetting about their respective former beaus David Panton and Wyllie’s ex-husband, Collingwood president Jeff Browne, who is now “very happy” dating Melbourne social identity Ann Peacock.

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