He is one of Britain’s most eligible bachelors, but Carphone Warehouse tycoon David Ross is ringing a familiar number again.
I can disclose that the National Portrait Gallery chairman and former chairman of the Royal Opera House is back together with his ex-girlfriend Emma Pilkington, of the glass dynasty.
‘They are a great match, and it’s wonderful to see them happy since they got back together,’ David’s friend tells me.
Ross, 59, who’s been known to party in Mustique with Prince William and Catherine, was together with Emma, 39, for more than seven years, but they broke up after 2012.
In 2021, I disclosed that Ross had fathered a son, John, with Cecilie Fredriksen, whose father, also John, is a Norwegian-born shipping tycoon with a fortune of around £6.6billion.
Grimsby-born Ross, who has donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Conservative Party, is heir to the family fishing business.
He created Carphone Warehouse with public school friend Sir Charles Dunstone and his fortune is estimated to be £645million.
As London mayor, Boris Johnson gave Ross his first notable public role in 2008, appointing him to the board of the 2012 Olympics organising committee.
Carphone Warehouse tycoon David Ross is back together with his ex-girlfriend Emma Pilkington, of the glass dynasty (pictured together in March)
Ross, 59, who’s been known to party in Mustique with Prince William and Catherine, was together with Emma, 39, for more than seven years, but they broke up after 2012 (pictured in 2011)
Ross also has a son from a previous relationship with Michelle ‘Shelley’ Ross, a dancer. His girlfriends have included the model Saffron Aldridge and Ali Cockayne, the former partner of rugby legend Will Carling.
The tycoon’s main home is the 13th-century Nevill Holt estate in Leicestershire, where he hosts the annual Nevill Holt Festival.
His friend tells me that this event helped bring the couple back together. ‘They have a great shared passion for the arts, and they are both really excited about making next year’s Nevill Holt Festival bigger and better than ever.’
Gail Porter ‘bullied’ after stunt by lads’ mag FHM
Gail Porter, whose naked image was beamed on to the Houses of Parliament as a stunt by lads’ mag FHM, says she was ‘bullied’ at the time.
‘There was a strange time in the 1990s when men on TV were mean to females,’ she says in a BBC2 documentary. ‘Some of them seem to think it made them look like a big man in front of their mates.’
Loaded: Lads, Mags And Mayhem, to be broadcast on Friday, features footage from music quiz Never Mind The Buzzcocks, with comedians Mark Lamarr and the late Sean Hughes mocking Gail.
‘It felt like when you were bullied at school,’ she says. ‘When a group of lads were picking on you and they were thinking it was fun and didn’t give a s*** what you felt.’
‘There was a strange time in the 1990s when men on TV were mean to females,’ Gail Porter (pictured) says in a BBC2 documentary
Billy’s secret to making his sixth marriage work
Billy Bob Thornton’s five former wives include Angelina Jolie, but number six is a keeper, he insists.
‘Firstly, she put up with a lot of crap from me at the beginning and I thought, ‘Wow. This girl stuck with me through a lost weekend’,’ says the Oscar winner, 69.
Thornton – who was once so drunk while filming 2003’s Bad Santa that he passed out on set – has been married to make-up artist Connie Angland, 60, pictured right, for a decade.
Speaking at the London premiere of Standing On The Shoulders Of Kitties, he tells me: ‘We have a daughter, when you bond over a child that helps.
‘The other thing is you’ve got to be friends. It can’t just be lust. Lust doesn’t last.’
Connie Angland and Billy Bob Thornton attend the Los Angeles Premiere of Paramount+’s ‘Landman’ earlier this month in Los Angeles
Final wife of George Best: ‘I’ve always gone out with older men’
The final wife of George Best, Alex, was 26 years younger than the Manchester United footballer, who died in 2005 aged 59.
Now 52 and single, Alex declares: ‘I’ve always gone out with older men, but now that wouldn’t work, because they’d be 70, and I’d be putting them into a home.’
Best earned a fortune, but he lost almost all of it, once saying: ‘I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars.’
Alex Best, 49, was married to the former Manchester United footballer (pictured together) for nine years before they divorced in 2004
Boris’s sister’s beloved Ziggy in the doghouse
Rachel Johnson’s beloved cockapoo Ziggy is in the doghouse.
Boris’s sister took her pet to stay at the 12,000-acre Farr Estate near Inverness, where it failed to behave during a game shoot and chased after the pheasants.
‘Ziggy was in disgrace,’ Rachel admits.
‘She was rightly arrested by a very conscientious gamekeeper and released on bail after being held in a small cell on the estate.’
Rachel Johnson with her beloved cockapoo Ziggy
