What DID naughty Nigel get up to on night flight with glamour model?
She says they nearly joined the Mile High Club. He says he only gave her a lift home. Brace yourself for turbulence!
NIGEL FARAGE’S trip to Atlanta, Georgia, started out ordinarily enough. Brexit was naturally the topic of a speech he gave to the Rotary Club of Atlanta in which he told the audience: ‘The revolution of 2016 is not over.’
The next day, he presented his evening LBC Radio show from the city — Brexit again was the topic of the hour.
Later that night, Farage boarded a Virgin Atlantic flight to London and found himself in conversation with a young British woman called Valerie Fox, who was also enjoying the comfort and luxury of Virgin’s Upper Class.
Ms Fox, who claims to be a staunch Remainer, was apparently so appalled to be seated opposite him that she took to her social media account before the flight had even taken off, posting a picture of the politician in his seat with the caption: ‘En route back to London. And I would be sat opposite to Nigel Farage, wouldn’t I?’
An emoticon with her update showed a gun held against a head.
Funny how people can surprise you. For by the time the flight had touched down on the morning of March 22, Ms Fox had had something of a Damascene conversion.
‘Hate to be wrong about people, but tonight I spent 5 hours speaking with someone I thought I would dislike,’ she posted. ‘I couldn’t have been more wrong.’
Only now are the events that caused this pneumatic Remainer’s change of heart becoming clear.
Possibly, a little too clear for the beleaguered Mr Farage, who ought to be basking in a triumphant Brexit glow rather than rueing the night he ever dined with a glamour model at the bar on a first-class flight. For, according to Ms Fox, it wasn’t just their exchange of political views that was heated.
Reports emerged this weekend that Mr Farage enjoyed a steamy — and rather public — liaison with Ms Fox.
DID a shared vegetable lasagne — Ms Fox is a vegan and insisted Farage have the same — ever have such calamitous consequences? For what happened after the couple dined together has become the subject of a lengthy report in a red-top tabloid published on Saturday. After the lasagne, she and the former Ukip leader began ‘snogging and touching each other’, according to a friend of 30-year-old Ms Fox.
Farage, says Ms Fox, was in a frisky mood. She says that when a stewardess came around, asking what size pyjamas he would require, he looked at Ms Fox with ‘a glint in his eye’ and asked what size she thought he would need. ‘Large,’ she answered.
Indeed the pair were, according to the rather breathless report, on the brink of joining the Mile High Club.
‘He had absolutely no qualms about anyone else seeing us together,’ Ms Fox told a friend. ‘Our hands were everywhere. We even joked about having a quickie in the toilet. He kept telling me, “You’re stunning, you’re fit, your body is amazing.” ’
But just as Mr Farage’s passions were, apparently, in danger of causing an embarrassing incident, he dropped off to sleep and came to as the plane touched down at Heathrow.
Later, he is said to have told Ms Fox: ‘I haven’t felt this way for years.’
But that infatuation appears to have worn off very quickly — perhaps after Googling Ms Fox and discovering she is a porn movie star who also provides escort services at £400 an hour.
Mr Farage has given a very different version of events, saying he spent part of the flight eating his dinner, and part of it asleep. Bewildered, he has asked: ‘It’s all a set-up, isn’t it?’ So what is the truth of that flight, and just how did the details of it find their way into a newspaper?
Mr Farage vehemently denies any inappropriate behaviour on his part.
‘I was chatted up by somebody on a plane, who asked me for a lift,’ he said. ‘Out of courtesy I obliged. And when the woman wanted things to go further I walked away. Since then there have been lots of enticements, all of which have been dutifully ignored.’
His dismissal of their special connection has upset Ms Fox, who told the Mail yesterday their encounter is ‘absolutely true, every bit of it’. Indeed, her version of events seemed to gain credence yesterday when another passenger on board the flight confirmed that the couple were indeed openly affectionate.
Student Dillon Smith, 20, confirmed that Mr Farage and Ms Fox were kissing.
SMITH said: ‘Mr Farage was glued to her hip at the bar. There was no doubt that they were kissing — I caught them at it red-handed.’
What could have led to such indiscreet displays of affection? Ms Fox insists — somewhat bizarrely — it was a fevered discussion about Brexit that led to their passions running away with them.
‘I’m interested in politics and Brexit,’ says Ms Fox. ‘I’m
a Remainer and I was quite cross at first with him.
‘But to my surprise we ended up getting on really well. We were drinking. He was drinking wine, I was drinking bubbly. He was drinking quite a bit, but I wouldn’t say he was drunk.
‘The main cabin was dimmed at some point but the bar was only a bit dimmed. We were snogging and touching each other.
‘The cabin crew knew what was going on, I think. They kept coming past us and we joked that they were trying to babysit us.
‘We talked about my life, we talked about his life.’
Discussing Farage’s love life must have taken up a large chunk of the flight.
They talked first about Kirsten, Farage’s German-born second wife, the mother of two of his four children, from whom he separated last year. ‘He didn’t have anything very nice to say about her,’ says Ms Fox. She asked if he had a girlfriend.
‘He played it down,’ says Ms Fox. ‘He said he had someone he was dating, kind of. But then he’s not going to say, “I’ve got a girlfriend who I love and adore” when he’s got his hand on my thigh, is he?’
Indeed not. Farage has been ‘linked’ in the past couple of months to Laure Ferrari, a glamorous 37-year-old French politician.
Two months ago, it was reported that Ms Ferrari has been staying with him at his £4 million property in Chelsea, West London.
Farage explained at the time that she was staying with him simply to save money. ‘She is someone I have worked with and known for a long time who wanted somewhere to stay for a week that wouldn’t cost her any money. It’s a working relationship. You can inflate it however you want to.’
Whether his encounter with Ms Fox — who says she told the politician she was a glamour model — will ever amount to a ‘working relationship’ is doubtful.
For although the latest woman in his life seems to share his love of publicity, Ms Fox was reticent about revealing too much of her personal background, other than to say she is from Richmond, South-west London, and is a mother. She says she has to guard her privacy because of ‘what I do’ — a reference to the porn movies, presumably.
And then there is the escort service. In one profile, Ms Fox introduces herself: ‘Hi boys, I’m Valerie Fox, but then you already knew that. I am an English xxx star [sic] and have been in the industry since 2011 and I love it.’
Ms Fox is horrified at being described as a ‘£400-an-hour hooker’, however, and is at pains to point out that this is only ‘one aspect’ of her life. She is a blogger, a mother, and has worked as a hairdresser and make-up artist.
Her explanation as to how she ended up on a flight back from Atlanta, Georgia, is rather mysterious, however.
She says she had taken her children to Disney World in Florida and when they flew back to the UK with their nanny, she went on to Atlanta.
‘I had business there,’ she tells me. ‘I was meeting someone.’
How Mr Farage must wish he hadn’t become that other ‘someone’ in Ms Fox’s life.
When they landed, Farage insisted, she says, on having his driver take her back to her flat in Marylebone, in central London.
‘We kissed again at my flat but there was no sex. Nigel suggested we go out to dinner. He wrote his number down and I told him his writing was rubbish and we laughed about that.’
A few texts were exchanged. Valerie sent a text saying she’d loved their time together. He replied: ‘So did I. Have not felt like that for years. You are fabulous.’
Valerie replied: ‘Can’t stop thinking of you … so strange.’ Farage replied, she says: ‘Snap.’
She waited for his call, but it did not come.
Perhaps one of the reasons for Farage’s silence was the presence of Ms Ferrari — she was seen three days later coming out of his Chelsea property.
Not that there is anything romantic about their living arrangements. Mr Farage again made it clear this weekend that they are not having an affair, saying that Ms Ferrari is based in Paris, but sometimes stays with him ‘when she is in London’.
On ‘Brexit Day’ last Wednesday, Valerie texted Farage to congratulate him. He replied: ‘Thank you so much. I owe you a proper explanation for noncontact. Nigel.’
Just ‘Nigel’. Not ‘love Nigel’ — not even a kiss.
THEN to make matters worse, the story of their in-flight encounter was leaked. ‘I’m a very private person,’ she explains. ‘I’m quite shy. I did not want this attention. And I do not want Nigel to think that I am the cause of this. I made the mistake of telling a few girlfriends.’
Ms Fox points out that she has 62,000 followers on Twitter due to her status as a porn star — she does not need to, nor wish to attract any more attention.
Her tweets about the episode, at first so full of admiration for Mr Farage, are now less fulsome.
One post read: ‘Want to deny it? OK let’s go ask the flight crew.’
For good measure, she tells me that the porter saw them walk into her apartment block, where Mr Farage stayed for 15 minutes.
Yesterday, Mr Farage was sticking to his story. Asked if he plans to meet with Ms Fox again, he said: ‘No, I met her once and I haven’t spoken to her since.
‘She can say what she likes. I met her on an aeroplane. She pushed it further than I thought was right. That’s the end of it.
‘There is nothing to say. Nothing inappropriate has happened at all — and nor will it.’
Today is Nigel Farage’s 53rd birthday. Valerie Fox may have wished him a happy ‘Brexit Day’, but perhaps he shouldn’t hold out too much hope for a text wishing him Many Happy Returns.