The Aussie pop star who became queen of the Trump party scene
She’s a friend of Trump and the Tories, while her forthright views have made her a star guest at right-wing fundraisers on both sides of the Atlantic. But Holly Valance insists wasn’t even trying to be edgy.
For those of a certain political persuasion and bank balance, there will be only one party in London on June 7 at which to be seen: Donald Trump’s fundraiser.
“It will be the best party,” one Republican operative told me. “It’s kind of a must-attend, if you can afford a ticket.”
Tickets cost up to AUD$150,000 (USD100,000) per couple. If you’re feeling flush, you can pay an extra $25,000 for a picture with two of the hosts: Donald Trump Jr and his fiancee, a former Fox News anchor called Kimberly Guilfoyle. The former president will not be there.
But there’s another name on the host list that stands out: the Neighbours star and Kiss Kiss singer, Holly Valance Candy, 41. For those on the right-wing social scene, her name on the invitation is a promising sign. “It’s a Holly party,” said Nigel Farage, who will, of course, be there. “So you can guarantee it’s going to be enormous fun.”
To some of her fans the Australian celebrity’s political views might come as a surprise. “She kept quiet for many, many years,” Farage said. The pair have been discussing their shared views for nearly a decade, but the politician always warned Valance that “once you go public there’s no way back”.
Now she has taken the plunge. Trump is, she told me last week, “charming, polite, very quick-witted. Most surprising of all, a great listener. That was not expected.”
She met the former – and perhaps future – president through Farage, who invited Valance and her husband, the billionaire property developer and Tory donor, Nick Candy, 51, to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s home in Florida, in April 2022.
When Farage posted a picture of the four together on Twitter/X, all hell broke loose. “Great dinner at Mar-a-Lago!” he wrote, in a photo that was liked 17,000 times and, intriguingly, has a photo of Trump with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator, on the wall behind him.
Some fans threatened to boycott Valance’s music, expressing horror at this hint towards her political persuasion.
For those on the political right in London, however, it was no surprise.
Valance and Candy, who met in 2010 at a dinner party, married in Los Angeles in 2012 and have two daughters, have for more than a decade been at the heart of a glamorous and wealthy right-wing social circle that wields great influence on both sides of the Atlantic.
They were guests at Boris Johnson’s third wedding and attended the glitziest Tory fundraising bashes, as well as being noted hosts in their opulent west London and Cotswolds homes. But it is only recently that Valance has started to talk publicly about her political views.
In a series of GB News interviews, she has spoken about Farage ("Ambassador Nigel Farage would be fantastic"), Greta Thunberg ("demonic little gremlin high priestess of climatism"), climate change ("I just think the climate crisis – or lack of – is not a crisis. The air is better than when I was growing up"), and her home country ("the woke stuff’s really gone big in Australia").
Valance did not intend to “speak out”, she told me last week. “It was a funny sliding doors moment because I didn’t think anything I said was particularly edgy or profound or revolutionary. But maybe it was a good moment for someone in the entertainment industry to buck the trend of only contributing their latest project pitch or their pronouns.”
Not everyone was thrilled by her candour in airing her views, least of all her half-sister Olympia, 31, who also starred on Neighbours. “It was like, ‘Oh my God,’ when she said all that stuff,” she told the Australian radio show Allan & Carly. “I’m like, ‘Oh God! Everyone’s going to think that that’s what I think!’ And I don’t.” But within Valance’s circles, she is a hero. A top Australian diplomat said she was “one of the reasons we secured such a favourable free trade agreement for Australia” in 2021.
“She had all of the right of the Tory party eating out of the palm of her hand.” Several times the Conservatives discussed making Valance their London mayoral candidate, but in the end she decided against it.
Instead, she will vote for Reform UK. Her political priority is leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). “There seems to be this idea that if we did, Britain would fall into this lawless hellhole with nothing set in place to protect people’s rights. This is Britain? We wrote the book on this stuff, for God’s sake, for countries the world over to follow … I understand at the time it had merit. But it’s a very different world now. And by the way, some may say we’re already a lawless hellhole.” Valance did not intend to “speak out”, she said.
Meanwhile, Team Trump is delighted. “She’s glamorous. She doesn’t fit into the pigeonhole. She doesn’t fit into the woke agenda of Hollywood and people don’t expect that,” said one admirer. Among the grey suits of the Westminster social circuit, she stands out: “She is definitely a star.” Another politico who moves in the same circles said: “She plays that scene very well. Everyone adores her.”
“That scene” is a circle of wealthy Londoners who are pro-Trump or at least Trump-adjacent. It includes the likes of the former US ambassador Woody Johnson, GB News owner Paul Marshall, the former prime minister Liz Truss and her acolytes, a scattering of other Tory politicians and Brexit backers, and any number of hedge funders.
Their haunt is Mayfair’s private members’ club 5 Hertford Street, a hangout not far from the Ritz that has played host to celebrities including the actors Margot Robbie and George Clooney. All this makes London a highly profitable place for a Trump fundraiser, with organisers expecting to raise well into seven figures.
Earlier this year the must-have ticket for that crowd was Farage’s 60th birthday party on April 3: a boozy affair at Boisdale, an old-school steak restaurant in Canary Wharf, beloved of the Brexit set.
Valance was one of three people – along with Farage’s son and Trump via video link – to give a speech in honour of someone she describes as “one of the bravest men I know”. As Valance spoke, a heckle came from the crowd: the comedian Jim Davidson wanted to know whether she would stand as an MP for Reform. Valance laughed: “Not this time, but maybe next time.”
The Sunday Times
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