Maxwell will renounce British citizenship to get out on bail
In a hilarious new TV show in aid of cancer charities, comics train celebrities to become the best stand-up
GHISLAINE Maxwell says she will give up her British citizenship if a US court frees her on bail while she awaits trial accused of allegedly trafficking under-age girls for paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Maxwell, 59, a friend of Prince Andrew, is currently in a New York jail accused of helping boyfriend Epstein recruit three teenage girls for sex.
US financier Epstein, 66, killed himself in prison in 2019, while awaiting trial for alleged sex offences.
A judge has refused two previous bail applications but in a third bid, the daughter of disgraced media tycoon Robert Maxwell says she will renounce her British and French citizenships to prove she will not flee abroad. Maxwell denies all the charges against her and in her latest court filing, her lawyers state she has no desire to leave the US.
The document says Maxwell, left, would agree to give up her foreign citizenship “to eliminate any opportunity for her to seek refuge in those countries”. Her lawyers also proposed Maxwell’s and her husband Scott Borgerson’s multi-million-pound assets be placed in a monitored account. Her lawyer Bobbi Sternheim, who described British citizenship as a “priceless asset”, said the move would be “sufficient to address the hypothetical risk of flight and secure Ms Maxwell’s presence at trial”.
Maxwell, who was born in France but raised in the UK, has been accused of child sex abuse, grooming and perjury.
She and is awaiting trial later this year while being held at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Centre.
Epstein’s victims claim Maxwell acted as his recruiter in the 1990s, convincing girls and young women to visit the multi-millionaire’s properties in Florida, the Virgin Islands and New York, where he would abuse them.
The Duke of York, 61, stepped back from royal duties for the “forseeable future” in 2019 over what he called his “ill judged” friendship with Epstein. He has been accused of having sex with Virginia Roberts, then 17. He vehemently denies the claims.
TRAPPED in the spotlight, palms sweating with nerves, five celebrities are about to find out what it feels like to face the loneliest place in show business. These famous faces have agreed to put their dignity on the line to make their debut as stand-up comics. And they are risking potential humiliation on national TV for a good cause: Channel 4’s Stand Up To Cancer campaign.
For the two-part series, Stand Up & Deliver, Conservative peer Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, Reverend Richard Coles, Coronation Street’s Katie McGlynn, Happy Mondays singer Shaun Ryder and Love Island star Curtis Pritchard were teamed with professional comics who had two weeks to give their apprentices a crash course in being funny.
The fortnight culminated for each of them in a terrifying 10-minute performance in front of an audience who would decide which one was the best comic.
When the series starts tonight, viewers will see the competitors pushed well and truly out of their comfort zones.
Backstage, as the live gig at the Battersea Arts Centre in London gets underway, a nervous tension ripples through the air. There’s plenty of pacing, hand-wringing and last minute run-throughs.
For Richard, performing in front of a crowd is nothing new. He started his career in the 80s pop duo The Communards, and swapped showbiz for the pulpit to deliver Sunday services to his parishioners before taking to the Strictly dance floor in 2017.
“If I can have the nerves to walk on to the dance floor and do the worst Paso Doble in
Strictly history in front of 10 million people, anything else is sort of a doddle after that,” he laughs, as his comedy mentor, David Baddiel, sits patiently beside him.
“But I had very low expectations being able to deliver a Paso Doble and I’m actually quite enjoying doing this, I’m rather enjoying the sort of competitive element of it, so I would like to do well.
“I’d like to do right by Dave because he’s been very generous, thoughtful and sympathetic. I would like to please him if I can.” Pleasing her partner was something of an uphill battle for Baroness Warsi, whose comedy sidekick, Nick Helm, couldn’t raise even the ghost of a smile when he found out he’d been paired with a Tory politician.
Left-wing stand-up star Nick, 40, quickly made it clear he hated her politics and everything the Conservative party stands for, but she took it in her stride, admitting that as she’s about to turn 50 there’s not much that can rattle her any more.
“I think that you get to a certain age and your mindset changes,” she says. “Look, I’m nearly 50, I’m menopausal, we’ve just been through a Covid year and it kind of puts things in perspective, right?”
The pandemic has had a terrible effect on the funds of cancer charities and, having seen her husband Iftikhar suffer a cancer scare a few years ago, Baroness Warsi said it was a “no brainer” to do all she could to help.
“Thankfully it wasn’t cancer, but he had the tests and for a couple of weeks our whole life came to a standstill.
“Everything that we thought was so important, all the plans we’d made, suddenly nothing mattered any more. That is happen