What’s Eva’s secret to looking this good at 46? Airbrushing!
Bathtubs of live lobsters. A castle hired just for her PA’s birthday. £70k blown on champagne. And all of it paid for with stolen charity cash. As she surfaces once more, the riotous story of how ‘Lady’ Rosemary went...
IT may appear effortless but, apparently, looking this beautiful doesn’t come easy.
Owning up to the work that goes into being perfectly groomed for a photoshoot – including some airbrushing – actress Eva Mendes admitted it took ‘a lot’ to make her this glamorous.
After a fan complimented the 2 Fast 2 Furious star, Miss Mendes revealed how in real life she had the same problems as everyone else, and ‘struggles with food’ and ‘many other things’.
The model and actress shared a photo of herself on Instagram wearing a floral dress and a green trench coat – and confessed it had been digitally altered. When a follower said she looked ‘amazing’, Miss Mendes was quick to respond with a dose of honesty just hours after she celebrated her 46th birthday, replying: ‘Thank you for saying this.
‘I struggle with social media... I try to post responsibly and don’t portray myself in a way that makes women feel bad. Instagram can be hurtful in that way. Like with this picture, this was actually a campaign shot and it was retouched. It takes a lot for me to look this way and I struggle with food among many other things.’
But asked to post photos of her husband, actor Ryan Gosling, father of her children Esmerelda, five, and Amada, three, she added: ‘ I’ll only post things already “out there” (like pics from movies we did). My man and kids are private. That’s important.’
gifts or envelopes filled with ‘pocket money’ — rarely repaid her affection. One suggestion is that Aberdour’s crimes were largely motivated by a desire to be liked.
It seems that Aberdour kept her fantasy life from her parents and immediate family by convincing them that the lavish home she inhabited was paid for by the charity as a venue for entertaining wealthy patrons.
Friends were told never to call her ‘Lady Rosemary’ or refer to her supposedly aristocratic status; to explain why, she made up the story that her parents were ‘socialists’ who had rejected their inheritance and the family title.
The cracks began to appear before Christmas 1990 when her fitness trainer Jamie gave a newspaper interview in which he mentioned that celebrity clients included one Rosemary Aberdour, daughter of the Earl of Morton. He was telephoned by the real earl, who indignantly declared that he didn’t have a daughter called Rosemary. When Jamie confronted his client she convinced him there had been a misunderstanding.
By mid-1991, the National Hospital Foundation’s bank accounts had been so drained they were almost empty. Aberdour purchased an open plane ticket to Brazil and awaited the inevitable denouement. On June 7, bosses at the charity discovered a forged cheque in one of her files. She was sacked but by the time the charity had realised the extent of her crime she was on a plane to Rio de Janeiro.
With Aberdour on the flight was Michael Cubbin, an Army officer to whom she had recently become engaged. The seemingly blameless Cubbin, who had met Rosemary in a pub near her parents’ home, was unaware of her crimes. When she confessed, he persuaded her to return to the UK to face the music. In court, her barrister compared Aberdour’s crimes to a compulsive gambling spree, saying she had an uncontrollable desire to ‘please people’ by attempting ‘to buy their affection and esteem’.
‘ The so- called friends, who sponged off her ill-gotten gains, have evaporated like the bubbles in champagne,’ he said. ‘The cars and the jewels have gone back to their rightful owners. The pretty balloons have long since burst and the party’s over.’ Aberdour had nothing to show for the spree, he added. The only real victims of the crime were insurance companies, who had repaid the stolen loot to the charity.
Cubbin loyally stood by his nowpenniless fiancee and married her at a modest military wedding in November 1994, shortly after her release from prison. They lived in Oxfordshire, in a cottage where Rosemary ran fashion company Knit Wits. But in the late 1990s, the couple moved to Suffolk.
There the couple, who have no children, have led a quiet existence. Michael worked for the Defence Safety Authority after leaving the Army, and now works as boss of a local solicitors’ firm.
Rosie, as she is known to friends, now writes a food blog called Lick The Spoon. It is linked to an Instagram account where she posts images of culinary creations. There have in recent years been signs that all is not well on the financial front. In 2014, a business venture called Corten Steel Shipping Ventures Limited, of which Rosie was a director and shareholder, went into insolvency, owing a quarter of a million pounds to creditors including the Inland Revenue, who were due £41,904.
Just before Christmas, meanwhile, a charge was registered to the property by West One Secured Loans Limited, a remortgaging company. She did not return messages asking about either her current circumstances or the latest court proceedings this week, while Rosemary’s brother Robert also declined to discuss the affair.
But given her reappearance at the centre of a new High Court battle, it is clear that, three decades on from when she first hit the headlines, the fake ‘Lady’ is still battling her hangover.
‘The so-called friends have evaporated’