MADE IN WIND SOR
The extraordinary links between the young royals and Sloaney cast of TV reality show Made In Chelsea
GLOSSY, party-loving and spectacularly wealthy — the privileged stars of the reality TV show Made In Chelsea are the flashiest social set in Britain, almost. Just one exclusive gang out-poshes the Made In Chelsea crew: the young royals.
The two groups have such similar interests, upbringings and attitudes, it’s not surprising to learn that Princes Harry, William et al are grow-ing ever closer to the TV stars. So much so, Harry’s fiancee Meghan Markle has even been tipped to pick one — Millie Mackintosh — as a bridesmaid.
Here, ALISON BOSHOFF reveals how shar-ing love affairs, private members’ clubs and kinships via school and blood — not to mention deepening their friendships through the relent-less partying only the beau monde can manage — has led to the House of Windsor developing a gold-plated bond with the cast of Britain’s most well-to-do reality show...
Old school ties and Cressie’s cousin
WE ALREADY know that Prince Harry loves a big night out — who can forget the wild strip billiards in Las Vegas, or the disastrously ill-conceived Nazi fancy dress?
His friends are every bit as predictably pleasure-seeking. But few know that several of Harry’s closest buddies are paddling in the shallow end of reality TV show fame.
For the fifth in line to the throne is friends with three Made In Chelsea (MiC) stars.
His longest MiC friendship is with Ollie Proudlock, a six-pack-flaunting, blond-highlighted, Bikram yoga-practising Sloane, who was in Harry’s year at eton.
Proudlock is also friends with Harry’s so-called ‘three musketeers’: Julian rufus Isaacs, Arthur Landon and Tom Inskip, who is known as Skippy.
Proudlock, 29, has swathes of tattoos and jingling silver jewellery (his trademark is a dan-gling cross that hangs from his left ear).
A star of MiC for six years, he has used his role on the show to springboard into that most modern of careers: a lifestyle blogger always posting on the social media site Instagram.
It’s proven highly lucrative — he has more than 700,000 Instagram followers, and a fortune estimated at an astonishing £5 million.
His penchant for posting images of his work-outs and details of his favourite items of cloth-ing has led to a fashion line, fitness endorsements and commercial deals that include Timberland shoes, diesel clothes, Vaseline and The Saucy Fish Co.
Proudlock — who has dallied with his onscreen co-star Lucy Watson — has taken a rather similar career path to Harry’s fiancee Meghan, who used her role in the TV drama Suits to launch a lifestyle blog and clothing range.
Another MiC friend of Harry’s is richard dinan, a playboy entrepreneur. Super-posh richard, whose parents are Lady Charlotte Curzon and headhunter Captain John dinan, says of Harry: ‘I give him full-on, first-grade star, a f***ing good man.’
dinan’s cousin is Cressida Bonas, the high society actress who dated Prince Harry from 2012 to 2014.
Throughout their relationship and after its collapse, dinan kept quiet about them, once saying: ‘She doesn’t want her cousin from Made In Chelsea diving into it.’
His loyalty has paid off, and his friendship with Harry survived the break-up.
dinan left St edward’s School, Oxford, at 16, and tried nightclub promotion before trading penny stocks. doing well, he turned to spread betting (where you bet on price movements of thousands of shares at once), saying: ‘Some guy with a hundred grand watch advised me Citigroup would soar.’ However, he was wrong, and lost everything — something he describes with the composure only a wealthy person who has lost a small fortune could muster, saying: ‘I have no children in school and I am still f***ing standing.’
Today, after leaving the cast of MiC, he is in business with Alex Nall-Cain, the son of Ferrari-loving fraudster Lord Brocket — their ventures include 3d printing and a discount restaurant card. dinan is now seeking investment in a nuclear fusion company, aiming to raise £200 million from investors.
And the third of Harry’s MiC pals? Hugo Taylor, a lanky sun- glasses entrepreneur who is engaged to ex-Made In Chelsea star Millie Mackintosh.
The Prince got to know old Harrovian Hugo five years ago via his close pal Guy Pelly, who gave Hugo a promotion job at his Park Lane nightclub, Whisky Mist, no doubt thanks to Hugo being part of a mega-posh party crowd that includes model Poppy delevingne and Chelsy davy — another of Harry’s old flames.
He and Millie are now the picture of bliss, but their romance has been bumpy. They dated during their MiC days, but split in 2011 after Millie learned that Hugo had hooked up with her best friend, a well-to-do brunette called rosie Fortescue.
Millie went on to marry rapper Professor Green in 2013, and when that ended in 2016, she and Hugo began dating again.
They got engaged last summer after he proposed during a holiday in Greece.
Since Made In Chelsea, Hugo has appeared in reality TV shows such as I’m A Celebrity . . ..
His day job is running sunglasses firm Taylor Morris, with his best pal Charlie Morris. Their shades are sold in Harvey Nichols and Bloomingdales.
Meghan’s divorced wedding planner
WHEN Prince Harry marries Meghan in May, one of Made In Chelsea’s best-known cast mem-bers may be walking down the aisle of St George’s Chapel behind them: Millie Mackintosh is tipped to be a bridesmaid.
Meghan, 36, has many celebrity friends, often seen at private mem-bers’ club Soho House (branches in New York, Malibu, Toronto and LA as well as London and Oxford-shire). One such friend is Millie —
Meghan even posted a picture on Instagram of the pair cycling at Soho Farmhouse, Oxfordshire, in the summer of 2016 — around the time her romance with Prince Harry began.
Since then, their friendship has deepened, and Millie, 28, is said to be Meghan’s most trusted London friend, advising her on all elements of wedding planning.
The pair attend the same exclusive, invite-only, weekly fitness class together. Called The Skinny Bitch Collective, it describes itself as ‘popular with the A-list and myriad supermodels, it lies somewhere between forward-thinking fashionable fitness and a cave-girl sorority . . . a mixture of highintensity and animalistic movements that throw you out of your comfort zone’.
Meghan — who previously devoted much energy to her now defunct lifestyle blog The Tig — and Millie know how to use Instagram and other social media platforms to boost their aspirations.
Millie is something of an Instaboaster, taking endless selfies in exotic locations, performing gruelling exercises and modelling her own fashion line for her 1.3million followers. It’s proven highly lucrative: since leaving the show in 2013, she has written a lifestyle book, and her clothing range is sold by online mega-retailer ASOS and via her own website.
Millie — whose family founded the confectionary firm that created the Quality Street brand — was raised in a £1.4million townhouse in Bath and attended exclusive Millfield school in Somerset.
Eugenie’s snog with show’s star
THERE was talk of Princess eugenie appearing in Made In Chelsea, and she had a brief romance with the show’s Hugo Taylor, whom she was spotted snogging in a nightclub in 2008. Weeks after her clinch with Taylor, police were called to a party he was holding in Belgravia, and advised revellers, who included eugenie, 27, to keep the noise down. Today, eugenie is engaged to Jack Brooksbank, but she has maintained her friendships with the MiC set. She’s been chums for five years with Ollie Proudlock, and their pals in common include Chelsy Davy.
Bea, ringleader of the posh set
PRINCESS Beatrice, 29, is the ringleader of the fun-loving royal Lodge set — named after the house near Windsor Castle where she lives with her parents the Duke of York and Sarah Ferguson. There, her posh friends — including Cressida Bonas — gather to let off steam. Beatrice is also pals with James Matthews (husband of Pippa Middleton), They were introduced via Beatrice’s former boyfriend, Dave Clark.
Beatrice is also chummy with Chloe Green (daughter of Topshop magnate Sir Philip Green), who starred in the show in 2011, and the pair hung out together at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Pippa’s Casanova brother-in-law
WITH her deep tan, fabulous social connections and undemanding job, Pippa Middleton, sister of the Duchess of Cambridge, would be the perfect Made In Chelsea star — but her family’s famed discretion would never permit such exhibitionism.
Last year, however, Pippa married hedge fund manager James Matthews — whose brother Spencer is probably the biggest star the show has made. Memorably described as ‘Made In Chelsea’s resident idiot’, Spencer has boasted about drug use, orgies and having 1,000 sexual partners.
He has just become engaged to another minor reality TV player, Vogue Williams, who was formerly married to Westlife’s Brian McFadden.
Her love of publicity is such that she took a gynaecological examination on camera to check whether she was fertile — all for a television programme.
Spencer was best man at Pippa’s wedding last May, which was also attended by Kate, Prince William, and Prince Harry.
Jewellery designer Kate treasures
THE Duchess of Cambridge loves the delicate jewellery range made by former Made In Chelsea star and ex-model Amber Atherton, taking a dozen pieces on a royal tour in 2012.
Kate is also likely be on nodding terms with numerous Made In Chelsea stars. She and Pippa play tennis at Chelsea’s Harbour Club, where Chelsea-ites rosie Fortescue and Lucy Watson are also members.
Prince’s bond with East End rapper
THIS month, Prince William launched a mental health initiative with Professor Green. The rap star, real name Stephen Manderson, was raised on a Hackney estate and spent his early teens dealing marijuana. He then leapt up the social ladder by marrying Millie Mackintosh in 2013, only for them to split acrimoniously in 2016.
even off-duty, the royals’ tracks cross with the reality stars. William has been spotted at the French ski resort of Verbier — he was seen dad-dancing in a bar there during a lads’ break last year.
It’s the favoured resort of many of the Made in Chelsea crowd, including Chloe Green.
And in 2013, members of the cast including Jamie Laing and Binky Felstead spent a week there for a special edition of the show.