TV arts supremo Yentob secretly weds his love after 40 years together

WHILE some couples found that being cooped up together during lockdown spelt doom for their relationships, for TV bigwig Alan Yentob it had the opposite effect.

I can reveal that Yentob has finally married his TV producer girlfriend Philippa Walker after almost 40 years together.

‘It was lockdown love,’ he tells me. ‘Back in the Sixties and Seventies, when we were young, no one got married and being unmarried was the thing to do.

‘But now, particularly after spending so much time together in lockdown, we decided it was time to get married. I even have a ring on my finger to prove it, which feels very strange after all this time.’

Yentob, 73, stepped down as the BBC’s creative director in 2015, but continues to make and present its Imagine arts series.

He exchanged vows with Philippa, 65, last Friday in front of their children, Isabella and Jacob, and just a handful of friends at Bridgwater register office in Somerset, where the family own a country house nearby. Their main home is in London’s Notting Hill.

Lady Rogers, owner of the fashionable River Cafe in London, prepared a ‘delicious’ wedding breakfast. Ruthie, who is married to celebrated architect Lord (Richard) Rogers of Riverside, sat beside the happy couple and watched them cut the wedding cake (right) she had created for the occasion. Bride and groom wore white, a summer dress for Philippa and a polo shirt for Yentob — almost formal garb for a man who has been teased for wearing pyjamas to work. ‘Our kids had got used to the idea of being illegitimate, but now we’ve legitimised them,’ he jokes. ‘They’re very pleased for us.’ The couple’s daughter Bella was hand-picked by Burberry for its 2015 advertising campaign. The striking brunette was billed as fashion’s latest ‘bright young thing’ as she modelled for the label that kick-started the illustrious catwalk careers of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Cara Delevingne.

But the English Literature graduate decided to give up modelling to work on a book for a children’s charity.

Godparents to her and her brother were American comic legend Mel Brooks and his late actress wife Anne Bancroft.