Marriage? We’re in, say Dragon Duncan and wife number 3
HE has described himself as ‘madly in love’ and like an ‘excited schoolboy’ over his whirlwind romance to a glamorous beauty from Uzbekistan who is 32 years his junior.
Now The Mail on Sunday can reveal that infatuated Scots tycoon Duncan Bannatyne will wed his third wife Nigora Whitehorn in Portugal next month.
The former Dragon’s Den star, 68, appeared smitten with his stunning 36-year-old fiancée when they were seen strolling hand in hand through the historic streets of Lisbon last week.
The couple were spotted looking around a 12th-Century church before Miss Whitehorn teasingly pointed out designer frocks in the window of a luxury wedding dress shop, perhaps dropping hints about what her husband-to-be can expect to see when she walks down the aisle on June 5.
She looked radiant in a Missoni maxi dress, while the multimillionaire mogul cut a suave figure in aviator shades, jeans, a blue jacket and blue shirt.
A source close to twice-divorced Bannatyne’s family said: ‘Duncan loves Portugal and he is spending more and more time with Nigora at his villa in the Algarve.
‘It is going to be a big wedding, a real celebration. His six children are all going to be coming across to be there.’
The family source said that Bannatyne and his new wife will be jetting off to Venice for their honeymoon.
One person not expected to be at the nuptials is his ex-wife Joanne McCue, who Bannatyne blasted as a ‘gold-digger’ after their very public split in 2011. The businessman also labelled her family a bunch of ‘parasites’ and claimed the divorce cost him £345 million.
Clydebank-born Bannatyne started out as an ice cream van man and now owns a chain of hotels and fitness centres, amassing an estimated £175 million from his business and TV appearances.
He had been dating former Miss Great Britain beauty queen Michelle Evans, 37, for seven months when photographs of him on a night out with Miss Whitehorn emerged in June 2015.
An embarrassingly public split ensued, with Miss Evans dumping him on Twitter, using his Dragon’s Den catchphrase: ‘I’m out.’
Bannatyne owns a palatial villa in the Algarve where he has been spending most of his time with Miss Whitehorn. It is quite a change in fortunes for his fiancée, who was living in a £200,000 terraced house in Bedfordshire with her teenage daughter before she met Bannatyne at a Harley Street dental surgery, where she was working as a receptionist.
They became engaged last June during a romantic break in Monte Carlo following a lengthy relationship. The tycoon reportedly spent £40,000 on her engagement ring.
Despite being a father of six, Bannatyne hinted recently that he wants to start a new family, saying: ‘We’re trying… Well, we’re not doing anything to prevent it.’
‘Spending time at his Algarve villa’