When it was revealed that Oasis star Liam Gallagher had bought Tony Adams’s Cotswolds home for £4million (with no mortgage), there was bemusement about why the former England footballer had decided to sell up.
Adams, 59, had bought the eight-bedroom house – set in five acres near Cirencester, Gloucestershire, and featuring a swimming pool, tennis courts, stables and a two-bedroom cottage – with his wife, whisky heiress Poppy Teacher, in 2002.
He has now revealed his reason for the sale – Poppy is going back to university at the age of 52. ‘This is a new era for us,’ he tells me at The Oldie magazine’s luncheon at the National Liberal Club in Westminster, where he was promoting his new book, 1996: Reflections On The Year That Changed My Life.
‘We’ve sold the house and are returning to London. My wife is going back to school.’
Poppy, pictured with Adams, says: ‘I told Tony I wanted to do early modern history and he said, “How do you monetise that?” And I said, “You don’t!”
‘But I think he’s proud. He’s telling everyone I’m doing a PhD, but it’s a masters.’
Tony Adams and his wife Poppy Teacher in London in 2024. Poppy is beginning a masters degree in early modern history
Fittingly for a former Arsenal defender, Adams says: ‘We are now renting while we find a new home in north London. We’re not going back to the Chelsea area where all the Blues are.’
Poppy became the former Strictly contestant’s second wife in 2004 following his recovery from alcoholism. They have three children and he has three more from his first marriage to Jane Shea.
‘I’ve brought up the children, but now I need to use my brain again,’ Poppy says. ‘Tony and I want to have a London life, do things like go to galleries.’
Georgia gets itchy feet over skin range
Sir Mick Jagger’s daughter Georgia, seen with mum Jerry Hall, is putting her skincare range, May Botanicals, on hold three years after its launch
Sir Mick Jagger’s daughter Georgia’s struggles with eczema and sensitive skin led her to set up her own organic skincare range, which her mother, Jerry Hall, helped to promote.
Yet after just three years the Burberry model has put the firm, May Botanicals, on hold. ‘This wasn’t an easy decision, but it’s the right one for me as I focus on my family, modelling and my other business, Bleach London,’ says Georgia.
The firm’s products include 50ml of Golden Hour Face Oil for £58 and a 50ml of Super Balm Skin Saviour for £50.
Georgia, 34, who has a 21-month-old son, Dean, with her boyfriend, Texan skateboarder Cambryan Sedlick, 26, adds: ‘Building May Botanicals has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.’
Sir Lenny Henry was happy to accept a knighthood, but the investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle appears to have been a challenge. ‘I got knighted by Queen Elizabeth,’ he said in the comedy tent at the Latitude Festival near Southwold in Suffolk at the weekend. ‘It was a huge honour… although a bit triggering. Posh English person coming at me with a sword – triggering on an ancestral level.’
Suits you! Phoebe finally weds in traditional gown
When Mountbatten heiress Phoebe Knatchbull married 32-year-old banker Leopold Glover last year the groom wasn’t the only one in a suit.
Phoebe, 30, a great-granddaughter of the 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, wore a tuxedo dress by her step-sister Daisy Knatchbull, a Savile Row designer, at the ceremony in Chelsea, west London.
But at their second, more lavish ceremony in Portugal at the weekend, she wore a traditional bridal gown. Daisy says Phoebe’s ‘in her Mrs G era’.
Phoebe and Leopold got married in February 2025 in a small ceremony at the Kensington and Chelsea Registry Office in London. The couple had a second celebration in Portugal where Phoebe modelled a stunning white dress (pictured)
Did Meghan eat her words on chef show?
The Duchess of Sussex’s guest appearance as a judge on MasterChef Australia may have left some of her admirers rather confused.
She declared on the show: ‘I grew up in California and so, as you know, we have incredible produce, so you just start to love farm-to-table at an early age.’
She added of her mother, Doria Ragland: ‘My mom’s an incredible cook and I grew up watching so many cooking shows.’
However, the comments have a different flavour to some she made last year on her Netflix series, With Love, Meghan.
‘I was a latchkey kid,’ the duchess said then. ‘I grew up with a lot of fast food and also a lot of TV-tray dinners.
‘It feels like a different time, but that was so normal with the microwaveable kids’ meals.’
The former actress continued: ‘I used to eat a lot of Pollo Loco, Taco Bell… Jack In The Box, because my mom loved their tacos.’
She captured the greed and extravagance, the insecurity and vulnerability, plus the other hallmark of Sarah Ferguson’s character – summarised by my colleague Christopher Stevens as ‘thoughtless contempt for anyone but herself’ – without sharing any of those traits.
Indeed, after portraying Fergie in The Lady, ITV’s drama about Fergie’s former aide, murderess Jane Andrews, Natalie Dormer, 44, donated her fee to charity. So I’m pleased to see that the Game Of Thrones star has received lucrative rewards elsewhere.
Latest accounts show she made a £400,000 profit in 2025 at Pangur, one of two firms into which she pays her earnings, boosting its bottom line to £1.7million last November.
Hiss and make-up…
Bridget Jones star Sally Phillips admits that, at the age of 56, she had to concede defeat after being body-shamed by a cosmetician.
She explains: ‘A make-up artist said to me recently, “I’m going to put powder on”. I said, “Do you put powder on now at my age?” She said, “You don’t put gloss paint on a cracked wall.” So, powder it is.’
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