Hollywood, 52, moves in with barmaid, 23
HE MAY be negotiating an expensive divorce – but that hasn’t stopped Paul Hollywood splashing out £1m (€1.1m) on a love nest to share with his 23-year-old barmaid girlfriend.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the Bake Off star recently completed the purchase of an 18th-century period farmhouse in a picturesque village in the Kent countryside.
It will be a perfect bolthole for Hollywood, 52, and new partner Summer Monteys-Fullam, who is 29 years younger than him – and has nicknamed him ‘Cake Cake’.
Sources say Mr Hollywood is ‘thrilled’ to have secured a permanent new house, 15 months after he split from wife Alex. The chef had previously been living in a nearby rented property.
His new pad is about 40 miles from the marital home where Alex,
‘They’re around a lot and seem very happy’
his wife for 21 years, still lives with their 16-year-old son, Josh.
Locals have spotted Mr Hollywood and his girlfriend at the pretty property, which has four bedrooms and comes with two acres of land.
One nearby neighbour said: ‘They’re around a lot and they seem very happy. They go to the local pub sometimes too.’
Friends believe that Ms Monteys-Fullam, a keen rider, may decide to put her horse in the paddocks that adjoin the house.
Ms Monteys-Fullam gave her TV presenter boyfriend his bizarre nickname as it was the name under which she saved his telephone number before their relationship became public. She was all smiles yesterday as she enjoyed a shopping trip in Canterbury.
She has lavished praise on the chef who was the only member of the BBC’s Great British Bake Off presenting team who remained with the show when it was sold to Channel 4 in September 2016.
Writing on Instagram last April, she gushed: ‘I can only thank the people that are close to me. Including my amazing boyfriend.
‘You have turned me from a girl to a woman. I love you so much! This post is not for likes but the love of my life.
‘I am truly a lucky girl and have the best things and people and animals around me.’
The couple met when Mr Hollywood was organising a birthday party for his wife at the pub where Summer worked. They have insisted their relationship began only after his marriage fell apart in November 2017 but Mrs Hollywood, 54, filed for divorce last August on grounds of adultery.
Lawyers for the Hollywoods, who briefly split in 2013 after Paul’s affair with Marcela Valladolid, 40, his TV co-star on The American Baking Competition, are currently in discussions as to how his estimated £10 m fortune will be divided.
Speaking about the collapse of the marriage in a recent interview, Mrs Hollywood said: ‘I don’t feel angry with Paul, though of course there’s a certain amount of hurt. Anger is emotive and I’m not carrying that around with me. All it does is upset you.’ Mr Hollywood earns £400,000 per series starring alongside Prue Leith, Sandi Toksvig and Noel Fielding on Bake Off.