Empire that cruelty built
Luxury homes. Racehorses. Barbados bolthole – how TV millions led to...
THere has been no apology from Jeremy Kyle. The TV presenter, who I’m told was ‘very unpopular’ with the suits at ITV, has yet to utter a word of regret.
Instead, after consultations with his agents and his lawyer, he is attempting a retreat from the spotlight — appearing ashen and tight-lipped on Tuesday.
Kyle, 53, is being paid £38,461 a week, give or take, thanks to his £2 million a year golden handcuffs contract with the network. It has almost another year to run.
Sources indicate that Kyle cannot say sorry because he’s been advised it risks opening him up to potential legal action from Stephen Dymond’s family. Mr Dymond apparently killed himself after he ‘failed’ a lie detector test on the Jeremy Kyle Show, filmed on May 2. Any admission from Kyle could also jeopardise the fortune which ITV is paying him — they would be entitled to cancel his contract if he were to be found guilty of ‘gross misconduct’.
A source at the channel said: ‘ITV will be working out if he has breached anything by looking at his conduct from footage of the show.’
It’s thought that viewing this footage of the Jeremy Kyle Show — as yet unscreened — is what changed the network’s mind about its future.
On Monday, ITV chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall sent an email which said that the company had decided to cease production simply to ‘ protect the show’ and its production team. On Wednesday morning, she axed it permanently.
There is considerable fear in the network that the confrontation between Dymond and their star over the lie detector test may yet become public, and that it will prove devastating to Kyle and to ITV.
A source said: ‘ There is a fear that there is more (trouble) to come. You can imagine how bad the footage will look.’
In a statement, ITV yesterday said: ‘ The previously announced review of the episode of the show is under way and will continue.
‘ITV will continue to work with Jeremy Kyle on other projects.’
But will they? I’m told Kyle doesn’t believe he will ever be asked to stand in again for Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain. Nor does he think that the network will dream of commissioning another run of The Kyle Files — a documentary series which was shown in March this year.
He’s said to think that he is a ‘scapegoat’ and the ‘ victim’ of a new sensibility at the broadcaster. There is a feeling that the show was only on air because it drew in a £ 500,000- a- year sponsorship from a betting company and captured stellar advertising revenues thanks to the million or so daily viewers. Senior figures at the network, including boss Dame Carolyn, apparently deplored it, and felt that it didn’t fit any more with ITV’s aspirations to be Britain’s best loved TV channel.
Legal action may follow if Kyle — who doesn’t think he is personally to blame for what happened — is dropped by ITV, or not paid by them. But let’s not cry for Jeremy Kyle.
Privately educated and raised in a middle-class home, his celebrity lifestyle could not be more different from his very troubled guests.
HE’S MADE MILLIONS, SO WHERE ARE THEY?
JereMY Kyle has been a director of only two companies.
One of them, Ilminster Services Limited, was dissolved years ago, with a £5,300 debt. The other is Jezza Limited.
Micro-entity accounts, for very small companies which do not need to be audited, were submitted for that company in July 2017.
These show assets of £539,000 but also reveal that it owed a large amount to unspecified creditors, leaving declared net assets of £1,208. The previous year the company had been £7,457 in the black.
How is this possible? Showbiz sources suggest that he is paid around £500,000 for the Jeremy Kyle Show, and he will also pick up further substantial sums from hosting a Talk radio show, and from other work such as standing in for Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain. So where is all the money? Perhaps Jeremy’s father, an accountant, has advised him that he can perfectly legally set up beneficial offshore trusts in order to diminish his tax liabilities. He certainly has suggested that he doesn’t like to pay tax.
In an interview in 2010, Kyle was asked to name ‘My real-life villain’ and replied: ‘The tax man.’
GAMBLING . . . AND A STABLE OF HORSES
KYLe is a massive horse racing enthusiast, even though he has said that a gambling addiction almost broke him as a young man.
One horse he has owned is Dormello Mo. In 2015, it was reported that he ‘ went wild in a bookies after scooping a fortune in a bet on his own horse’.
He apparently charged around the betting shop yelling: ‘ Get in there!’ after the horse won at odds of 5-1. A punter said: ‘He was bouncing around the place when his horse came in.’
The horse seems to have been sold in 2016.
He also part owns Glen rocco, which is a possible Grand National contender next year. Glen rocco is co- owned with his best pal David Stevens, head of Pr for Coral bookmakers, who is going to be the best man at his wedding next year. Jeremy also co-owns an eight-year- old race horse called Old Guard.
The average racehorse costs £ 22,000, although the most promising can cost up to £100,000. And that’s before training and
stabling costs which add up to about £16,000 a year for each horse.
TWO LUXURIOUS HOMES NEAR WINDSOR CASTLE
THE current Kyle residence is an imposing red brick house in Windsor worth £3 million.
Jeremy, 53, lives there with fiancée Vicky Burton, who used to be his children’s nanny. They plan to marry next year.
A stone’s throw away in Winkfield, Berkshire, lives Carla Kyle, his second wife. This large, white- painted home has f i v e bedrooms and is said to be wor th £2.4 million. They were divorced in February 2016, following reports that Carla had been unfaithful in 2015 with England polo player James Carr.
On discovering Jeremy and Vicky were an item, Carla said: ‘I’m in shock. She was my nanny for nine years, she looked after my babies. There are moral boundaries and integrity.’
A CARIBBEAN BOLTHOLE
KYLE has a house in Barbados said to be worth £2 million. He holidays here at least twice a year, often with his children and his widowed father in tow as well He was last pictured in Barbados in April. Before then he was out there in January, and July last year.
If he pays for the whole family to fly out twice a year that could easily cost him £20,000, on top of maintenance costs for his Caribbean home.
GLOBE-TROTTING GOLF
IN 2016, Kyle fulfilled a lifelong dream when he went to Augusta, Georgia to watch the Masters golf. He is a huge enthusiast for the game, having taken it up aged 12, and played off a five handicap in his youth. He has a lifetime membership at Close House in Newcastle, where membership is £2,000 a year, and his ‘home course’ in the Caribbean is Apes Hill in Barbados.
He is also understood to be a member at Windlesham, Surrey, where he hosts a charity golf day and membership costs are also £2,000 a year.
DESIGNER WATCHES
KYLE, whose father was an accountant and secretary to the late Queen Mother and whose mother was a clerk at the Royal bank Coutts, has a taste for the finer things in life.
He has been spotted wearing a Calibre de Cartier watch, costing over £6,000, or wearing a stainless steel Daytona Rolex, costing around £20,000. On holiday he wears a Ulysse Nardin Diver, £6,750.
In terms of clothes designers, he favours Dolce & Gabanna. Basic men’s suits start at around £2,000.
NEW TEETH
HE has been in despair about his teeth, saying in 2011 that they looked like ‘smashed crockery’. But when he (unsuccessfully) launched a version of his show in America, his smile was transformed by what appear to be a full set of porcelain veneers, costing upwards of £30,000.
A DIAMOND RING ... OR TWO
KYLE proposed marriage to Vicky in February 2018. He said: ‘It was in the Caribbean. I found a shack. I went down on one knee. The ring was upside down. She said “Just get up, will you!”’
The ring is a large round-cut diamond solitaire, worth around £25,000.
Second wife Carla was also given a large diamond ring by Jeremy — heart-shaped and set on a diamond band.