Celebrity’s Lady C is hit by £100k book firm debt
BEFORE becoming the unlikely star of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! Lady Colin Campbell revealed she was taking part in the show for two reasons – to lose weight and to earn enough money to fix the roof of her dilapidated castle home.
But I can reveal there may be a much more pressing agenda – plugging a gaping hole in the finances of her business, Dynasty Press. According to its latest accounts, the publishing house racked up a £100,000 deficit in the year ending August 31, 2014. That follows a £75,000 loss in 2013.
In the past year the company has published just one book – Mr Frankenstein, by Richard Freeborn, about wealth and politics in the 21st Century – and has only £820 in the bank.
Lady Colin, who wrote a biography of Princess Diana in 1992, founded Dynasty Press to publish her own work. The company’s first title in 2009 was her book about her troubled relationship with her mother, called Daughter Of Narcissus.
But the firm suffered a huge setback in 2012 when her Royal biography – The Untold Life Of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother – was scorned for its bizarre claim that the Queen Mother’s real mother was her family’s French chef.
I’m A Celebrity stars are reportedly being paid six-figure sums to take part in the various trials, and Lady C, as she is known in the jungle, wants to use her windfall to restore the 18th Century Castle Goring in West Sussex. She bought the property for £700,000 but it needs an estimated £2million for repairs, including £50,000 to fix the roof.