Naomi Campbell, who once declared that she had made the term ‘anger management’ famous, is fighting back against the Charity Commission’s recent ruling.
The supermodel was banned as a charity trustee earlier this year after the watchdog found a series of failings at her organisation Fashion for Relief.
Now, however, I can disclose that she is formally appealing against the commission’s ruling that she cannot be a trustee for five years.
‘Naomi was left devastated by the decision,’ one of her friends tells me.
She instructed lawyers to carry out an investigation into what happened at Fashion for Relief and the circumstances that led to her disqualification.
The probe is understood to have unearthed ‘bombshell’ evidence which points to her being the victim of a sophisticated ‘fake email sting’.
The friend says: ‘Naomi was absolutely shocked by what the lawyers discovered.’
Evidence is said to suggest that Campbell, 54, was kept in the dark about the running of the charity.
Naomi Campbell is fighting back against a ruling by the Charity Commission with ‘bombshell’ new evidence
Campbell walks the Runway at Fashion at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival
The first she learned of many of the allegations was through the Charity Commission’s report.
Sources close to the investigation say some of what has been discovered could force the Charity Commission to re-examine the case.
A series of grounds for appeal have been cited in legal documents, including abuse of process and the breaching of Campbell’s right to a fair hearing of the allegations against her.
In September, the Charity Commission said it had found there had been serious mismanagement of funds, including using charity money to pay for a suite in a five-star hotel in France during the Cannes Film Festival.
The regulator found the £7,800 cost for three nights for Campbell was unreasonable, and other trustees and charity volunteers stayed in cheaper accommodation.
The findings followed revelations by The Mail on Sunday that the charity spent more than £1.6million on a glittering fundraising gala but gave just £5,000 to good causes over a 15-month period.
The regulator found that between April 2016 and July 2022, only 8.5 per cent of the charity’s overall expenditure was on charitable grants.
Campbell founded Fashion for Relief in 2005 and said she had been inspired by South African leader Nelson Mandela.
Minnie’s romantic ideal? A man who puts the bins out
Good Will Hunting star Minnie Driver is not searching for a wedding ring even though she’s been going out with American filmmaker Addison O’Dea for six years.
‘I’m just so happy that I found him, and I don’t think getting married is the be-all and end-all for us,’ she tells me at the Fayre of St James’s in London.
‘It feels so unromantic and it’s not what we are told when we’re little girls.’
The actress, 54, whose exes include actors Matt Damon and Josh Brolin, explains: ‘We’re sold this idea of tall, dark and handsome but really he should be a good listener, patient, kind, and funny because, let’s face it, commitment isn’t all gorgeous.
‘You’ve got to put the bins out, you’ve got to pick up the dog poop and do the washing-up.’
Minnie Driver has revealed that her ideal man would ‘put the bins out, pick up the dog poop and do the washing-up’
Boy George and truth about Princess Margaret’s tart quip
King Charles’s cousin, the Earl of Snowdon, has sought out Boy George with an urgent message.
The Culture Club singer had for many years thought that David’s mother, Princess Margaret, had called him a ‘tart’ after she was introduced to him in a line-up at an awards ceremony in his 1980s heyday.
‘There was me, Carol Decker from T’Pau, Kim Wilde and a couple of other people,’ Boy George explains.
‘And we were all really over the top – we had a lot of make-up on, a lot of padded shoulders, a lot of big hair. She was apparently overheard saying, ‘Who is that over made-up tart?’ Of course, everyone said it was about me.
Singer Boy George thought that David’s mother, Princess Margaret, had called him a ‘tart’ after she was introduced to him in a line-up at an awards ceremony in his 1980s heyday
‘Then, years later, I was in Kensington in a restaurant and her son sent a message over, saying, ‘Can I speak to you?’ I said, ‘Yeah, come over’.
‘And he was, like, ‘You know my mother never called you a tart’. And I was laughing my head off. He goes, ‘My mum knew exactly who you were, she had loads of gay friends – she wasn’t talking about you’.’
So who was Queen Elizabeth’s sister referring to? When Boy George asked, the earl replied: ‘That I don’t know.’
Meghan’s pal laments TV’s identikit stars
Women on television are all starting to look the same, because so many have undergone cosmetic procedures, claims Jameela Jamil, the actress and model.
‘Have we considered how weird it’s going to be when soon all women on television look exactly the same but men have so much variety?’ says Jameela, 38, a friend of the Duchess of Sussex.
‘An insane proportion of women in the media and online are getting the same nose, the same cheekbones, the same jaw, the same eyes, the same eyebrows, the same eyelids, and are starting to aim for the same forever age and body.’
Women on television are all starting to look the same, because so many have undergone cosmetic procedures, claims Jameela Jamil, a friend of the Duchess of Sussex
By contrast, men’s facial differences are celebrated. ‘Can you imagine a world in which every man feels responsible to have to save up for painful, expensive surgery to look exactly like Cillian Murphy?’ she says.
The privately educated Londoner, who lives in Los Angeles with her musician boyfriend James Blake, appeared on Meghan’s podcast, Archetypes. She also wrote an article for the 2019 issue of Vogue when Meghan was guest editor, with her photograph appearing on the front cover.
Lily’s Wicked story is just nuts
Wicked star Cynthia Erivo’s talon-like nails are simply nuts, according to pop star Lily Allen.
‘I actually sat next to Cynthia on a plane, going to New York not that long ago, and she had the nails,’ the singer says of her fellow Londoner. ‘At the beginning of a flight, if you’re sitting in business or first class, which I was, they bring a warm bowl of nuts.
‘And I was watching Cynthia try to negotiate her way through this bowl of nuts incredibly unsuccessfully because of the nails.
‘I really wanted to just be, like, ‘Babe, do you want a hand?’
‘I would totally have fed her the nuts.’
Cynthia Erivo at the UK premiere of the film Wicked at the Royal Festival Hall, London
‘Fergie warned Andrew about THAT interview’
Sarah, Duchess of York warned her ex-husband, Prince Andrew, not to give the calamitous interview to the BBC’s Emily Maitlis that ended his royal role, her lawyer has revealed.
Paul Tweed has been instructed by Fergie and other royals in the past.
He says: ‘I had strongly advised his press secretary, Amanda Thirsk, against proceeding with the disastrous Newsnight interview – as did his ex-wife, Sarah. I have often wondered if I should have done more, but the duke was not my client and I didn’t think for a minute that the interview would go ahead.’
Tweed, who has been described as ‘the most powerful man in Hollywood’ and represented stars including Johnny Depp and Jennifer Lopez, suggests it’s the duke’s innocence that’s got him into trouble with friends such as the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Tweed says of King Charles’s brother: ‘I’ve found him to be good company, if a little naive.’
Paul Tweed, pictured with Andrew, has been instructed by Fergie and other royals in the past
(Very) modern manners
Don’t stop her now, but Queen drummer Roger Taylor’s daughter Tigerlily is considering dipping a toe into the increasingly lucrative market for photographs of women’s tootsies.
‘OnlyFans for feet pics,’ the 29-year-old model asks friends online. ‘Thoughts? Advice?’
This week, pop singer Kate Nash, 37, revealed that she was generating money to fund her live tours by posting images of her backside on OnlyFans, an online subscription service which has been used to monetise explicit content.
‘It’s quite empowering,’ Nash insisted.
Tigerlily Taylor at the M.A.C x Dreaming Eli LFW After Party at Old Session Club in London on September 13
Just a month after the memorial service for Hans Rausing’s second wife, Julia, there’s some consoling news for the billionaire philanthropist. I hear his daughter Lucy has given birth to her first child.
She and her husband, photographer Constantin Kirwan-Taylor, have named the girl Heather. ‘It’s lovely news,’ a friend tells me.
Mourners at the October service for art expert Julia, who died following a battle with cancer, included the Queen’s first husband, Andrew Parker Bowles. Lucy’s mother, Eva, the first wife of Tetra Pak heir Hans, died from drug abuse in 2012.
Sir Rod Stewart roasted MasterChef judge Gregg Wallace for ‘humiliating’ his wife, Penny Lancaster, on the show in 2021. Yet the singer, 79, may need to rein in his own cheeky behaviour.
Disco legend Nile Rodgers, 72, will perform after Stewart at Glastonbury next year and he’s already anticipating pranks.
‘He’s probably going to pinch my bum because he always does that,’ Rodgers tells me at the Rolling Stone UK Awards, at the Roundhouse London, where he picked up the Global Icon Award.
‘I don’t know what the hell he gets out of that.’
