IT’S PARTY TIME FOR THE MONACO SET
Pixie, Justin and Tamara are in, but Bernie says ‘No way’ to Mel
TAMARA ECCLESTONE totters past the yachts on her high-heeled Jimmy Choo’s to air-kiss Naomi Campbell. The heiress to a £5billion fortune meets the supermodel.
In the minutes before today’s Monaco Grand Prix this thin thread of tarmac next to the Med will be the world’s most exclusive catwalk.
A horde of photographers will scramble to capture this gaudy parade of sashaying stars. Tamara and her husband, Jay Rutland, pop brat Justin Bieber, Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch and British singer Pixie Lott will be clicked furiously.
Exactly which A-listers hotfoot it over from the Cannes Film Festival to be here is a secret. One who will not be in attendance, however, is Mel Gibson. He asked for a pass, but Tamara’s daddy — Bernie Ecclestone, the sport’s diminutive puppeteer — politely declined.
Bieber, a strangely skinny little chap, was camera-shy yesterday. He went in to see Ecclestone in his paddock headquarters. What, one wonders, did the 20-year-old Canadian pop star and the 83-year-old son of a Suffolk trawlerman talk about?
Whatever, Bieber took a ‘selfie’ with Ecclestone before scampering out of the back door and scuttling away in his white beanie and orange shorts without the cadre of photographers spotting him.
The venue for Campbell’s 44th birthday party on Friday was apt — the Billionaire Club, a brassy, swanky joint owned by her former boyfriend, the Italian high-roller Flavio Briatore. He is the one with his shirt undone to his solar plexus and the swagger of a man who has just broken the bank at Monte Carlo. His boat, Force Blue, a floating monument to extravagance, cost him nearly £70million. That, though, is not the most expensive in the harbour.
Vijay Mallya, the India drinks mogul and owner of the Force India team, has a yacht — the Indian Empress — half as big again. He bought it from the Qatari Royal Family for a few million more than Briatore spent.
Roman Abramovich’s Eclipse, worth £300m, is not here this year (though many Russians are moving into the area permanently).
Above the harbour nestles a range of five-star hotels. The most exclusive is the Hotel de Paris on Casino Square. The Churchill Suite there cost £90,000 last night. So extensive, and expensive, is the hotel wine cellar that during World War II, a brick wall was built around it to stop looting. The other grand hotel is the Hermitage. Caviar, oyster sauce, foie gras and a glass of champagne there will set you back £100. It is where Ecclestone usually stays. Not this year. He has been invited on a boat by Donald Mackenzie, the chairman of CVC, the private equity firm that owns Formula One. The weekend is dotted with glamorous social engagements. At Friday’s annual fashion show, Tamara sat next to Prince Albert. The Prince last night hosted perhaps the most exclusive of all events — the cocktail party in the Grimaldi Palace overlooking the harbour. Two hundred or so of the great and the good are invited.
The Prince will host the traditional gala dinner tonight. This is still black tie. The race winner sits next to the Prince and Princess Charlene.
If you look closely at Monte Carlo you can see some frayed edges: ugly buildings and facelifts that have fallen flat. As Somerset Maugham observed, it can be ‘a sunny place for shady people’.
But, still, this is the only venue on the calendar which pays Ecclestone no money for the privilege of staging a grand prix. ‘Monaco does more for us than we do for it,’ conceded Ecclestone. Who can argue?