He’s one of Britain’s most eligible bachelors, but Carphone Warehouse tycoon David Ross is calling a familiar number again.
I can reveal that the chairman of the National Portrait Gallery and former chairman of the Royal Opera House is back together with his ex-girlfriend Emma Pilkington, of the glass dynasty.
“They make a great couple and it’s wonderful to see them happy since they got back together,” David’s friend tells me.
Ross, 59, known for partying in Mustique with Prince William and Catherine, was together with Emma, 39, for more than seven years, but they split after 2012.
In 2021, I revealed that Ross had fathered a son, John, with Cecilie Fredriksen, whose father, also John, is a Norwegian-born shipping magnate worth around £6.6 billion.
Grimsby-born Ross, who has donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Conservative Party, is the heir to the family fishing business.
He set up Carphone Warehouse with his public school friend Sir Charles Dunstone and is worth an estimated £645 million.
As mayor of London, Boris Johnson gave Ross his first notable public role in 2008, appointing him to the board of the 2012 Olympics organizing committee.
Carphone Warehouse magnate David Ross is back with his ex-girlfriend Emma Pilkington, from the glass dynasty
Ross, 59, known for partying in Mustique with Prince William and Catherine, was together with Emma, 39, for more than seven years, but they split after 2012.
Ross also has a son from a previous relationship with Michelle ‘Shelley’ Ross, a dancer. His girlfriends include model Saffron Aldridge and Ali Cockayne, ex-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 are both very excited to make next year’s Nevill Holt Festival bigger and better than ever.”
Gail Porter ‘intimidated’ after youth magazine FHM stunt
Gail Porter, whose naked image was broadcast to the Houses of Parliament as a stunt by youth magazine FHM, says she was “bullied” at the time.
“There was a strange time in the 1990s when men on television were mean to women,” he says in a BBC2 documentary. “Some of them seem to think it made them look like a big man in front of their peers.”
Loaded: Lads, Mags And Mayhem, airing on Friday, features footage from musical competition show Never Mind The Buzzcocks, with comedians Mark Lamarr and the late Sean Hughes making fun of Gail.
“It felt like when you were bullied at school,” he says. “When a bunch of guys picked on you and thought it was funny and didn’t give a damn what you felt.”
“There was a strange time in the 1990s when men on TV were mean to women,” says Gail Porter in a BBC2 documentary.
Billy’s secret to making his sixth marriage work
Billy Bob Thornton’s five ex-wives include Angelina Jolie, but number six is the keeper, he insists.
‘First of all, she put up with a lot of nonsense from me at first and I thought, ‘Wow. “This girl accompanied me during a lost weekend,” says the 69-year-old Oscar winner.
Thornton, who was once so drunk while filming 2003’s Bad Santa that he passed out on set, has been married to makeup artist Connie Angland, 60, pictured right, for a decade.
Speaking at the London premiere of Standing On The Shoulders Of Kitties, he told me: “We have a daughter, when you bond with a boy it helps.”
‘The other thing is that you have 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.
George Best’s last wife: ‘I’ve always dated older men’
George Best’s last wife, Alex, was 26 years younger than the Manchester United footballer, who died in 2005 at the age of 59.
Now 52 and single, Alex says: “I’ve always dated older men, but that wouldn’t work now because they’d be 70 and I’d put them up in a nursing home.”
Best made a fortune, but lost almost all of it, once saying: “I spent a lot of money on alcohol, birds and fast cars.”
Alex Best, 49, was married to the former Manchester United footballer (pictured together) for nine years before divorcing in 2004.
Boris’s sister’s beloved Ziggy in the doghouse
Rachel Johnson’s beloved cockapoo, Ziggy, is in the doghouse.
Rachel Johnson with her cockapoo Ziggy
Boris’s sister took her pet to stay at the 12,000-acre Farr Estate near Inverness, where it misbehaved during a hunting session and chased pheasants.
“Ziggy fell from grace,” Rachel admits. “She was rightly arrested by a very conscientious ranger and released on bail after being held in a small cell on the farm.”