Why Noel’s the craziest creature in TV jungle!
From his ‘electrosmog’ to parents who live on as orbs...
the taxi he drives so that people don’t try and hail him. ‘Candice’ even ‘performed’ on a dance track which in 2013 got to No3 in the dance charts. She’s not believed to be coming to the jungle with him – though she might be more entertaining than some of the inmates.
NOT SO NICEY
DJ Mike Read – a Celebrity jungle veteran – was, like Edmonds, once a presenter of the Radio 1 breakfast show. But that doesn’t make them friends. In a 2006 interview, Noel called Read ‘a w***er’, and added: ‘If it was an Olympic sport, he would have won more medals than Steve Redgrave.’
Read responded: ‘I always thought that Noel and I got on well together and honestly could not be more delighted that his (Deal Or No Deal) comeback has been so successful.’
In the same interview, Noel said of former Radio 1 colleague Tony Blackburn: ‘Poor old Tony’s got a big memory problem. I always wondered whether he realised that Capital Gold is an Oldies station.’ The two are now friends, with Edmonds saying that on the old Radio 1 there was always fierce rivalry between DJs.
Of another colleague and breakfast show host, Dave Lee Travis, he said: ‘Dear Dave. If it wasn’t for pirate radio he’d have ended up digging roads in Manchester. He was never the brightest spark.’
As for DJ Sara Cox, new host of Radio 2’s drivetime show, he’s called her ‘very yesterday’ as a talent. ‘She’s coarse and unpleasant,’ he said.
FARMER NOEL
For years, Noel lived on the huge Broomford estate in Devon with his then wife Helen, their three daughters and a plethora of pets and livestock.
‘We live knee-deep in animals of every kind,’ he said. He claimed to be a dab hand at delivering first aid to newborn creatures. ‘I’ve given a foal mouth-to-mouth. It’s hard, you can only do one nostril at once. It lived,’ he said.
‘I’ve also saved lambs by swinging them around my head and then putting them in the oven.’
COSMIC ORDERING
Noel became a believer in cosmic ordering after being given a book about it by his reflexologist. He said that four of six wishes he wrote down and offered to the cosmos then came true, including his wish to front another hit show – which was Deal Or No Deal.
‘You’ll think I’ve gone away with the fairies, but its fantastic!’ he said. He wrote a book, Positively Happy: Cosmic Ways To Change Your Life, in 2006. He explained: ‘To me cosmic order is all about being a positive person who takes charge of your own life.
‘You have to make conscious decisions to go out and make things happen for you.
‘It’s not hocus-pocus New Age stuff. You don’t have to wear beads and smoke exotic substances to be able to get into it.’
MID-LIFE LOTHARIO
There was a purple patch in 2006, after his marriage to Helen broke up, when Noel was hailed as the most unlikely mid-life lothario in showbusiness. Over the space of a few months he squired an ex-Miss England, a French estate agent and Deal Or No Deal contestant Kelly Napper, 27.
All of that came to an end when he met makeup artist Liz Davies. Recently separated from her cameraman husband, she moved in with him at his £3million mansion in the south of France and they later married.
The house is in the hills behind Nice, dates from the 16th century, and has spectacular gardens, olive groves, and a swimming pool. In the UK he has a home in Devon with a lake.
HIGH MAINTENANCE
Former girlfriend Marjan Simmons says Noel used to take 45 minutes to blow-dry his hair and style his beard – while she would be ready to go out in ten.
‘I found it a little odd, but that’s his character,’ she said. ‘The bed had to be made a certain way.
‘He’d spend half an hour making it some days, and even then it wasn’t always to his liking. He was always so specific about how he wanted things.’’
She says he has a phobia of water. ‘We once went snorkelling in the Maldives on a romantic break. We’d been in the water five minutes and he started to freak and want to get out.’
BIG COMEBACK
Deal Or No Deal was a huge success. It started in 2005 and commanded audiences of up to three million, but was axed in 2016 after ratings had fallen to around 300,000 – by which time Noel had handed out £40million in prize money. ‘I’ve had a sensational ten years,’ he said.
He says he has not chased subsequent jobs on TV, although there have been some other pilots for Channel 4.
HIS OVERDOSE
Last year Noel spoke about how, in January 2005, he tried to kill himself by taking handfuls of prescription pills washed down by a bottle of vodka.
He was discovered in woodland on his estate in Devon, and his life was saved.
He said he blames the bank HBOS for the woes which led him to this low, including the end of
his 19-year marriage to second wife Helen, which he called ‘a tragedy that is impossible to exaggerate’. He said: ‘HBOS had robbed me of my marriage, my family, my businesses, my long-standing friend and business partner, my income, my investments, my selfrespect, my reputation, my privacy, my physical and mental health. It cost me my security, my image rights, my collection of classic cars – and very nearly my life.’
As you might expect, it’s a complex story but Noel believes his business empire the Unique group, which had been nurtured by him for 30 years, was driven into the ground by everincreasing bank fees and charges. He sold part of his image rights, his classic cars and his TV memorabilia before having to put Broomford up for sale, too, in late 2004. He has now taken legal action against the bank – and is still said to be worth around £3million.
VROOM VROOM
Finally, it may be no bad thing that Noel has lost his classic cars. In an interview with Loaded magazine in 2008, Edmonds said he drove 186mph in his Ford GT40 sports car at 4.30am – while naked.
He said: ‘I thought I’d take it out for a breather, the poor thing was stuck in its stable and needed exercise. I remember arriving at a roundabout horrendously fast, I almost didn’t stop.’ Police and road safety groups were not impressed.