Can Kylie tame the ‘toxic bachelor’?
Celeb businessman Andre Balzas and Kylie Minogue appear giddily made for each other
OBODY could deny that Kylie Minogue and Andre Balazs make a handsome couple. Balazs, a man-abouttown best known for his celebrity-studded restaurants and hotels, is tall and dark with a penchant for suave suits and a touch of Gene Kelly in his muscular build and grace.
Kylie, now 46, remains almost impossibly adorable – a petite Tinkerbell in lavender frills, with baby-doll features and a pristine blow-dry.
Pictured together on Tuesday evening, the pair looked perfectly suited, exuding glamour with the air of confident serenity sported only by the seriously rich and extremely famous.
After leaving a party for fashion designer Valentino together, they headed to Balazs’s London restaurant, the Chiltern Firehouse, arm in arm, appearing giddily made for each other.
The Aussie pop star was also at the restaurant on Monday night, although she left alone.
So could Hungarian-born Balazs, an eligible 57-year-old worth £300 million (R5.2 billion), be the answer to Kylie’s romantic woes? That seems extremely doubtful, given his status as one of Hollywood’s most eligible, but toxic, bachelors.
Let’s not forget that Kylie had her heart broken by cheating Gallic actor Olivier Martinez in 2007.
It is hard to see in what world Balazs, who makes Martinez look like an amateur in the love stakes, could be the man to give Kylie the security she clearly craves.
One has only to glance at the roll-call of rich, famous and beautiful women he has romanced and parted from to work that one out. From Renee Zellweger to Sharon Stone, it
Nseems there is no female celebrity who has not fallen at his feet at the merest flash of his dazzling smile.
Granted, Kylie must be ready for a new romance, having been single for a year since her break-up with male model
He also has a reputation as a masterful flirt
Andres Velencoso.
At least Balazs is single, too, at this moment. He recently finished a two-year on-off romance with blonde chat-show host Chelsea Handler – Jennifer Aniston’s best friend. But Kylie should remember that, while he is everyone’s favourite man about town, hailed in one profile as “the king of it all” for his money, celebrity and ability to create super-cool, star-studded eateries, he also has a reputation as a masterful flirt.
Only last month he was spotted unloading a truckload of charisma at the feet of Pippa Middleton, who was all giggles and hair-flicks over lunch at the Firehouse.
His former girlfriends include film star Uma Thurman, singer Courtney Love and actresses Renee Zellweger, Sharon Stone and Cameron Diaz. That’s to say nothing of his dates with fashionista Daphne Guinness and model Naomi Campbell.
Indeed, even rock chick Courtney Love, renowned for her wild ways, once observed that “he can be a bad boy”.
Before his hotel and restaurant empire took off in the 1980s – he now has eight hotels around the world, all adored by a loyal celebrity clientele – he appeared happily married to Kate Ford, the heiress to Eileen Ford’s model agency.
But as he began to mix with a new circle of starry friends and customers, he embarked on an array of equally starry relationships.
His toxic bachelor period began 11 years ago when he started dating Uma Thurman.
Still married at the time, he divorced the next year.
For a time, Andre and Uma played happy families, seen regularly on the New York social scene and living on a huge country estate. They were even said to have got engaged late in 2006.
So who is Andre Tomas Balazs – and how has he ended up dating such a string of beautiful women?
Born in Budapest,
h e moved to America with his parents as a child after they fled Hungary and settled in Massachusetts and New York. His parents were extremely successful immigrants – father Endre was an eminent research professor who taught at Harvard Medical School, while his mother, Eva, was a psychologist at the McLean hospital in Massachusetts.
Young Andre inherited their intelligence. He went to Cornell University, then took a Masters degree in journalism at Columbia, but opted to help his father run a biotech firm instead of entering the media. The company was enormously successful but in 1984, at the age of 27, he moved on to an early investment in a New York nightclub.
It was around this time that he met and married Katie Ford, the brunette daughter of legendary model agent Eileen.
The couple had two daughters, Alessandra, now 23, and Isabel, now 19. Katie joined her mother at Ford Models as creative director in 1992 and later chief executive in 1993.
Now, however, Balazs is in the spotlight not for his business but for his personal life, and his new link to Kylie Minogue.
The pair are being discreet about what may be occurring. Kylie’s spokesman had nothing to say on the subject yesterday, nor did a PR for Balazs. – Daily Mail