Daily Mail

The 40- year switch: Bella Freud trades in husband for a toyboy

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AFTER fashion designer Bella Freud married bestsellin­g author James Fox, she voiced satisfacti­on that her arrangemen­ts were a far cry from the unconventi­onal personal lives of her parents, the celebrated artist Lucian Freud and his lover, Bernardine Coverley.

‘It’s incredible,’ marvelled Bella, 56. ‘I never imagined that was possible, but I did want it, definitely. I suppose I was really lucky that I met someone and it carried on working.’

Now, however, the wellconnec­ted designer has split up from Fox, 72, and fallen for a toyboy almost 40 years younger than her husband.

‘It’s the talk of the town,’ one of her friends tells me. ‘Bella’s been introducin­g her new man to everybody.’

Her lover is Taz Fustok, a 34- year- old artist and fellow Notting Hill resident with whom she is launching a West London members’ club.

One of Bella’s most popular designs is a sweater emblazoned with the year 1970 — a date 13 years before Fustok was born.

The 38- year age gap between her husband and her lover would have fascinated Bella’s greatgrand­father, Sigmund Freud, the inventor of psychoanal­ysis.

Her father, Lucian, who died in 2011 aged 88, was known for his relationsh­ips with women decades younger. He fathered at least 14 children, two from his first marriage and 12 with various mistresses.

Bella’s new relationsh­ip with Fustok could have provided rich fodder for Fox, too, whose book White Mischief documents the dissolute lifestyles of wealthy Britons in colonial Kenya’s ‘ Happy Valley’ before World War II.

It was turned into a hit film starring Charles Dance and Greta Scacchi. Fox also ghost- wrote the bestsellin­g 2010 memoir Life, of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards.

It caused a huge row with his bandmate Sir Mick Jagger after Richards mocked the singer’s prowess in bed and claimed he had failed to satisfy his girlfriend Marianne Faithfull with his ‘tiny todger’.

Fox and Bella, who have been together for more than 20 years and who married in 2001, have a son, Jimmy, aged 16, whose godfather is the designer Christian Louboutin.

While Bella was pregnant with Jimmy, she resolved to give her baby the structured upbringing she never had.

‘After we came back from Morocco, I lived with Penny Guinness, who was a girlfriend of my father’s,’ she later said. ‘Even though we were travelling around in gypsy caravans, she always made me go to bed at 9pm. And I did enjoy that.

‘It stuck in my head for my own child-rearing. I wanted to be around as much as I possibly could.’

Fox seems to have wasted no time in seeking comfort after their break-up. The other night, I saw him chatting up young women at a party at the National Portrait Gallery.

 ??  ?? Love swap: Bella with new beau Taz Fustok and (top left) her ex James Fox THE TOYBOY AGE 34
Love swap: Bella with new beau Taz Fustok and (top left) her ex James Fox THE TOYBOY AGE 34
 ??  ?? THE HUSBAND AGE 72
THE HUSBAND AGE 72

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