RHOC’s Ester Dee:
As Real Housewives Of Cheshire star Ampika Pickston gets engaged to her 72-year-old boyfriend, pal Ester Dee tells us about the couple’s secret dates and steamy love life
“Ampika’s been waiting for Mr Right!”
She made a name for herself due to her super-glam lifestyle and love of bling on The Real Housewives Of Cheshire, and now Ampika Pickston has found love with a man 32 years her senior. Last week, it emerged that Ampika is engaged to billionaire
West Ham United owner, David Sullivan, 72, a Welsh business mogul and former pornographer, who once owned half the UK’s adult entertainment industry. It’s said he proposed on her 40th birthday in July, with an 11½ carat, emerald-cut engagement ring, and a source close to the pair revealed Ampika “said yes straightaway”.
AGE GAP
Now, fellow Real Housewives star Ester
Dee, 36, who has been friends with Ampika since they met on the show in 2017, says her “funny and hard-working” pal couldn’t be happier after meeting The One.
“I’m so delighted for Ampika, she deserves to be happy,” Ester tells Closer. “I know people will judge the age gap and believe she’s after his money, but she isn’t hurting anyone with her actions. He seems like a really nice guy.
“Like me, Ampika’s been criticised for going after someone with a certain amount of cash. But in our circle, if you meet a young man, we
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start questioning, ‘Are they with me for the fame, or because I have more money?’ I think if you can find a match in a partner and know they aren’t after those things, you can relax a little bit more and stop questioning your relationship.”
Ampika, who runs a beauty salon and has her own £3million fortune, was previously married to billionaire businessman Mark Pickston, with whom she shares son Jake, 14. It’s believed she’s been dating David since last October, following his split with his partner of 25 years, Eve Vorley, 55 – an ex-porn star and a co-chairman at West Ham. The couple raised their two sons – David, 24, and Jack, 22 – at their £7.5 million mansion in Essex, where Ampika now spends a lot of her time, travelling back and forth from her own extravagant £2.8 million home in Cheshire.
Now Ester says that despite the age difference, Ampika and her new man – who she’s thought to have known for a decade – have bonded over their intelligence, as well as their love of business and travel. And she adds that she’s with him for the hot sex – not the money!
“Yes, money makes your life easier, but it doesn’t make you happy or make you stay with someone,” she says. “Ampika is a big personality and if David was boring, she wouldn’t stick around – and she definitely wouldn’t be considering marriage either.
ADVENTUROUS
“She’s been mostly single for many years, so he must charm her and be interesting. Older men can be great company, intelligent, and they like to travel. That aside, she’s probably having hot sex! It’s a myth that older men can’t please you, and Ampika is very adventurous.
“I strongly believe if Ampika wasn’t satisfied in the bedroom, she wouldn’t be going into marriage. She has been waiting for the right person.”
Tellingly, Ampika posted a video of herself wearing a red Primark underwear
set on Instagram last week. “Date night tonight,” she wrote, adding how she felt “as sexy as f**k”. But despite her down-to-earth choice of lingerie, Ester says both women share a love of “diamonds and pearls – everything sparkly!” She adds that Ampika and David share enjoy “luxury living” too, saying, “Ampika has been travelling to and from London in a Rolls-Royce.”
So, how will the lovebirds celebrate their marriage? Ester, who is planning her own “promise ceremony” to partner Glynn, 54, following her 2018 divorce from millionaire John Temple, predicts Ampika and David will say I do “at the beach, somewhere luxurious like St Barts or the Maldives”.
She adds, “Ampika loves the beach and sunbathing, so I don’t think they’ll have a lavish UK wedding, but I think it will be luxurious. She’ll definitely wear a big wedding dress and a crown!”
‘She’s probably having hot
sex!’