Over a year since news of their bitter marital split, Charles Spencer’s third wife Karen intends to remain close to the Earl’s ancestral home.
Having only recently vacated her husband’s Althorp estate in Northamptonshire, Canadian-born Countess Spencer, who has daughter Charlotte with Charles, confirms she’ll be remaining in the East Midlands county. “Official paperwork was signed yesterday,” she now enthuses. “It’s a beautiful and peaceful home in gorgeous Northamptonshire, surrounded by nature, and a wonderful community of friends.”
Alongside divorce proceedings with Spencer, Karen’s locked in a legal battle with the Earl’s current Norwegian girlfriend Cat Jarman, after the latter accused the Countess of leaking details of her multiple sclerosis diagnosis.
• Days after the death of Terence Stamp aged 87, I’m told relations sadly never healed with fellow British film legend and one-time flatmate Sir Michael Caine.
Insisting the pair permanently went their separate ways following Caine’s breakthrough screen role in 1964’s Zulu, Stamp had claimed in recent years: “As soon as he got his big break…he wanted to be on his own. It was a big shock for me because I’d imagined us in harness, taking on showbiz together. But it was his choice. I’m not so sure he would agree with that publicly, but I’m telling you that’s how it happened.”
Sir Michael was yet to officially comment on Terence’s passing at the time of writing.
• Reflecting on the current craze for weight loss jabs in Parliament, Tory politician Lord Vaizey complains: “I’m on the fat jabs…I’m the only person who’s immune to it. I’ve put on five pounds since!”
When it’s suggested he could instead consider going on a diet, Vaizey playfully responds: “That’s so 20th century.”
• Back touring Britain next month, there’s dispiriting news for Monty Python’s Eric idle.
While the comedy veteran regularly brags to the press that his 1979 ditty Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life has replaced Frank Sinatra’s My Way as the “most requested funeral song” in Britain, The Co-op’s newly-released UK funeral chart for 2025 states otherwise: Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman’s Time to Say Goodbye officially has the top spot, followed by Sinatra’s classic and Somewhere Over The Rainbow.
Prickly Eric’s effort doesn’t even make the top 10…
• Looking back on her eventful love life, retired Sky News glamourpuss Kay Burley ominously remarks of troublesome ex-boyfriends: “I’m much older now…I just sit by the river and wait for the bodies to float by.”
• Shedding light on his decision to pull out of a one-man stage tour across the UK this autumn, when he’d been scheduled to recount his life and times, Succession star Brian Cox, pictured, blames a busy workload. Less diplomatically, the old boy then barks: “I just thought, ‘I cannot face it’…it had a title, ‘It’s All About Me’, which I hate. I’m glad I’ve postponed it.’
After all the publicity surrounding Mr Cox’s tour, spare a thought for his promoter!