Daddy’s SO gay! But he did buy a £110k Porsche for my sixteenth
A £24k birthday party. A customised Rolex. And a gap year – from school! Now the years have f lown by, the IVF children of Britain’s famous ‘gay dads’ give a f irst-ever account of their VERY exotic lives
IT WAS the kind of sweet sixteen party most girls can only dream of. A dance floor covered the swimming pool, a London DJ manned the decks and the birthday girl was flown from her native Essex to New York for a session with a personal shopper to find the perfect frock. Her twin brother, meanwhile, was given a £110,000 personalised Porsche and a custom-made Rolex.
But then Saffron and Aspen Drewitt-Barlow are not most children. The twins are the oldest offspring of Barrie and Tony Drewitt-Barlow, the gay British couple who pioneered the ‘double dad’ family – and have turned it into an eyewatering financial success.
For a decade and a half, the Drewitt-Barlows have been figures of extraordinary interest, and not a little controversy.
They have been praised to the skies by the couples who have used their British Surrogacy Centre to gain an unexpected and very modern family. But they have also been reviled by those who cannot bear the thought of such a colourful departure from traditional child rearing.
They certainly practise what they preach. ‘Dad’ and ‘Daddy’, as Tony and Barrie call themselves, have already produced a family of no fewer than five surrogates themselves – but with the children have come extraordinary questions that no previous generation has ever faced.
And today Saffron and Aspen can help to answer them – in their first full interview.
Just 16, they are now free to speak about a family created by a complex consortium of donors and surrogates – and an upbringing as strange in its conception as it is outrageous in its opulence.
‘I have felt loved and that’s what is important,’ says Aspen. ‘Dad and Daddy have been incredible fathers. Dad and Daddy say their greatest achievement is having us and I’m proud of them as it wasn’t always easy, although they have shielded us from any negativity.
‘Like all parents they can also be a bit embarrassing at times. Daddy is very flamboyant. During school sports days he starts screaming and shouting, making himself the centre of attention. He’s just so gay all the time. Sometimes it makes me cringe but I love him for it too.’
Both are extraordinarily polite, holding eye contact and shaking hands when we meet. They have just moved house, swapping Essex for a new £2.1million cream and white porticoed mansion in Princeton, New Jersey, with 15 acres of gardens, swimming pool and boating lake. ‘I love having two dads and I don’t think I’ve missed out not having a mum,’ Aspen adds. ‘I’ve always known who my biological mother is and I’ve got a good relationship with her as well. I’m thankful for what she did.
‘I know Dad and Daddy were trailblazers as two dads who wanted to have a family, but these days I don’t think there’s any such thing as a conventional family any more.’
His sister Saffron takes up the theme: ‘Daddy is the one I turn to when I need advice. I share everything with him, he’s an amazing listener. That said, both Dad and Daddy can be really strict and they both vet my boyfriends.’
Neither Aspen nor Saffron is gay and both seem determined to pursue distinctly traditional romances. ‘Daddy can be so embarrassing when he gives them a grilling and tells them to behave themselves,’ she continues. ‘Although Aspen is worse! He tells me who he thinks would make a good boyfriend, but I’m holding out for Justin Bieber. ‘There are so many dads having families it is now just normal. I don’t think any of us understand just how hard it was for Dad and Daddy when they began but I’m proud of them for proving the doubters wrong and being such good role models for us.’ Even in unconventional households there are some universals. In
‘I know Dad and Daddy were trailblazers’
GCSE results week neither twin has excelled, gaining modest C-grades in the majority of their exams.
‘And we’ve just spent £500,000 on their education,’ observes Barrie, drily, clearly feeling short changed.
So does this mean the youngsters will knuckle down in the sixth-form? No, they are both taking a year off.
‘What are you going to do?’ queries Barrie. ‘Have fun,’ shrugs Aspen. ‘Shop,’ says Saffron.
The twins can afford to since they are currently being courted by American TV companies desperate to find a headline-grabbing family to become the next Kardashians.
The Drewitt-Barlows could fit the bill. They have left Essex ostensibly to escape the scrutiny and cold shouldering they say they have
‘We’re more outrageous than the Kardashians’
faced in the UK. But their transatlantic relocation plus a forthcoming documentary about the twins’ lavish lifestyle to be aired on Channel 4 tomorrow night won’t damage their chances of joining the super league of American reality TV.
Today, Aspen looks sharp in a dark suit and open shirt and Saffron, who loves designer labels and make-up brands, is pretty in a Burberry shirt, leggings and Louis Vuitton ankle boots. One twin was fathered by Tony, the other by Barrie.
They are joined around the family’s dining table by their little brother Orlando, 13, who is biologically Aspen’s twin (he was grown from a frozen embryo four years later in the womb of a different surrogate) and six-year-old twins Jasper and Dallas. They were grown by the same surrogate as Orlando but using eggs donated by a Brazilian model. Watching benevolently over them are 47-year-old Barrie and Tony, 52, who have been together for 30 years and married in 2014 as soon as they were legally able.
Barrie is the family spokesperson and also the parent who clucks around the family like a mother hen. His word is law in the household while Tony is the quieter, more measured of the parents. Both are warm, doting and tactile.
But they are also, even to the most casual observer, frighteningly overindulgent, showering their teenagers with material goods they don’t seem to want and, in the case of Aspen’s Porsche 911, can’t even use properly yet. It raises the uncomfortable question: have they tried to buy acceptance for children who might otherwise be ostracised by their peers for their fathers’ choices?
Recalling their £24,000 party, Aspen says: ‘We had a marquee and a dance floor over the swimming pool. We invited 200 people, and we had a DJ from London, and those big lights that beam right up into the sky.’
Saffron got her dress, a $1,100 Halston Heritage cocktail frock, from Bloomingdale’s in New York and matched it to a pair of Ivanka Trump heels. She added them to a wardrobe already bursting with designer labels – and the new Louis Vuitton bags and shoes she received for her birthday gift.
Aspen, meanwhile, seems underwhelmed by his. Asked if he likes his black Porsche 911 Carrera, which cost £110,000, he says only ‘Yeah.’ He also shows true teenage disdain for his new Rolex. ‘It isn’t finished yet – it’s being made somewhere. Switzerland?’
The twins are happy to show off their new bedrooms. Saffron’s is at the top of the house, with flowered bedlinen and teddy bears propped against her pillows. There is a picture of her two dads on a dresser.
Eleven Louis Vuitton bags are on the floor and on a stool at the bottom of the bed. ‘I’ve also got Jimmy Choo and Chanel but Louis Vuittons are my favourite,’ she says.
She admits to mixed feelings about her new life in the US and has found it hard to leave her friends. ‘I wasn’t crying but I was upset,’ she says. Asked what she wants to do when she is older, she laughs: ‘If I could, I would marry a rich man and stay at home.’ It’s a throwaway comment but perhaps a telling one given her parents’ determined assault on traditional family life.
Aspen has a mini-apartment above the garage which is kitted out with England and Manchester United posters and a rack of shoe boxes housing his expensive collection of trainers – Jordans and Yeezys. His ambition is to take over his fathers’ businesses but he’s more sanguine than his sister about becoming a celebrity first. ‘I’ve had a camera in my face since the day I was born. I’m used to it,’ he says.
Like most teenagers, Aspen and Saffron are self-confident one minute and awkward the next, but it’s clear they have an open and honest relationship with their fathers.
‘They can talk to us about anything,’ agrees Barrie. ‘Saffron talks to me and Aspen talks to Tony. A lot of people say that Saffron is missing out on having a mother’s touch and she doesn’t have anyone to talk to about periods and make-up and that kind of thing. Hello! I’m gay!’
He shrugs off accusations that they have an ostentatious lifestyle. ‘People say that they’re spoiled brats but every parent wants to indulge their children.’
‘I don’t think they’re privileged children because of money,’ interjects Tony. ‘I think they’re privileged because we are their parents. If we lost it all tomorrow and had to bring them up on baked beans and toast, we’d still be bringing up our kids the same way and that is to have old-fashioned good manners and have respect for everyone.’
Sadly, that’s not a courtesy which has been extended to his family. A major reason for leaving the UK, Barrie says, was that they felt unsafe because some people objected to their lifestyle.
‘I feel like we endured England for the past couple of years because we didn’t want to take Aspen and Saffron out of school but it was time to move on, because of the threats and harassment we faced. People here aren’t bothered about the fact that we’re a gay family. It’s not an issue.’
The twins, it should be said, never experienced any bullying because of their parents.
Here in the US, he continues, the family feels free to start again and there’s even talk of more children. Tony has declared himself too old to be a father again, but Barrie is yearning for more babies, particularly daughters. ‘We’ve got six female embryos already made. They’re in Beverly Hills, on ice,’ he declares. They are donor eggs from the same woman as the youngest twins, fertilised by both men.
Saffron and Aspen are not really twins but biological half-brother and sister, conceived using the donor eggs of one woman, Tracie McCune, and carried in the womb of a surrogate, Rosalind Bellamy.
The twins recently met some of their other half-siblings through their biological mother, who gave 15 or 16 eggs to other couples, according to Barrie. ‘That was an experience,’ says Aspen. One of their half-sisters, an actress in a Desperate Housewives series, will visit soon.
The family’s income is currently derived from two businesses. One is Barrie’s British Surrogacy Centre which is based in Los Angeles while Tony has a New Jersey company which tests consumer products. They have an estimated combined wealth of £38million.
And now it seems they are looking to make another fortune. As Barrie says: ‘We’ve always said we would make a great fly-on-the-wall show as our life is more extravagant and outrageous than the Kardashians.’
Without question, they are the architects of the ultimate modern family. But in achieving it, Barrie and Tony Drewitt-Barlow might have fallen into the oldest parenting trap in the world: spoiling their kids.