Latest news with #DougBarrowman
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Penny Lancaster swipes 'karma gets you' about new doc on the 'fall' of Michelle Mone - two decades after their dispute
Penny Lancaster swiped 'karma gets you' about the new BBC documentary on lingerie tycoon Michelle Mone. Thursday's instalment of ITV 's Loose Women saw panellists Kaye Adams, Nadia Sawalha, Penny Lancaster and Brenda Edwards sit down and discuss the day's hot topics. During the show, Kaye brought up the BBC One documentary titled The Rise and Fall of Michelle Mone. The two-part series delves into the story of the high-profile businesswoman who founded lingerie brand Ultimo. Her husband's, Doug Barrowman, company PPE Medpro has come under scrutiny after it was awarded contracts worth more than £200million to provide equipment during the pandemic upon Baroness Mone's recommendation. Any wrongdoing has been denied. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new Showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. Penny Lancaster swiped 'karma gets you' about the new BBC documentary on lingerie tycoon Michelle Mone as she appeared on Thursday's instalment of Loose Women Penny, who married Rod Stewart in 2007, modelled lingerie for Michelle's underwear company, Ultimo in 2002 but was axed after two years (Michelle pictured in 2019) Penny, who married Rod Stewart in 2007, modelled lingerie for Michelle's underwear company, Ultimo in 2002 but was axed after two years, the Express reported. 'So she asked you to come and model her lingerie very early on didn't she?' Kaye asked. 'And then she, without telling you, replaced you with Rachel Hunter who was Rod's wife,' Kaye added. Penny silently nodded and admitted: 'I wasn't informed of the documentary, someone told me it was coming out. 'It didn't surprise me because karma gets you, I guess, but as far as any details I'm prepared to talk about. 'It would have to be the right time and place for that and I've put it behind me for the time being.' Kaye probed, 'I get that and I totally respect it, but it must have been a difficult period of your life I presume?' Penny nodded and agreed, 'It was a very difficult time, yeah, but you know.' During the discussion, Kaye read out a quote from Rod Stewart that he said 20 years ago about the lingerie situation. She read: 'Michelle really needs to be put in her place and if this is revenge, so be it, I'm sticking up for my old lady. 'Penny doesn't want to admit it but she has been hurt by all of this, she's been in tears, Penny is a beautiful girl, I love her and I hate to see her hurt in this way. 'She did nothing wrong, put yourself in her place. How do you think she feels to be told she's being replaced by Rod's ex-wife.' Penny explained that she prefers to 'rise above it and be the better one'. A spokesperson for Michelle Mone told MailOnline: 'I am deeply disappointed by the BBC's decision to broadcast a programme using misleading and one-sided accounts of my life and career. 'I hope that the programme does not discourage young women from pursuing their ambitions. The allegations relating to my husband's company, PPE Medpro, will be defended in court.'
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
The revealing inside account of how Baroness Bra came undone: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews The Rise and Fall of Michelle Mone
The Rise And Fall Of Michelle Mone (BBC2) Baroness Mone scares people. Nobody says as much, no one turns white at the mention of her name and scuttles away from the camera. But they don't have to. Michelle Mone is known as Baroness Bra, after building a lingerie business whose biggest product was a brassiere filled with bust-enhancing gel. She was elevated to the House of Lords by David Cameron in 2015. But it was telling that, during the two-part investigation into her life, The Rise And Fall Of Michelle Mone, not one friend or family member appears in her defence. Neither her current husband Doug Barrowman nor her former husband Michael Mone agrees to be interviewed. Even former employees insist on anonymity, with their voices disguised. The only person willing to speak up for her Ladyship was her American therapist, Dr Ted Anders, a smooth-skinned man with more teeth than is strictly necessary. Director Erika Jenkin's documentary builds to an infamous confrontation with the BBC 's Laura Kuenssberg, with the Glasgow businesswoman squirming under questions about the PPE scandal — one stone-faced Scottish blonde charging another with helping herself to an inordinately large slice of the public finances. Barrowman's company PPE Medpro, which was awarded contracts for medical equipment worth £200 million during the pandemic, has been accused of providing unusable materials, with his wife Baroness Mone and her children standing to benefit from a £29m trust fund. Despite this, the two-hour programme — both episodes now available on iPlayer — is not an all-out hatchet job. It stops well short of accusing her of any crime (unless you count 'lying to the media', which Baroness Mone reminds us is perfectly fine). But she comes across as a thoroughly unpleasant woman: dishonest, bullying, self-obsessed, manipulative and lacking much talent for either business or innovation. In real life, she might be a lot worse than that, of course. Her former PR man Jack Irvine accuses her of 'massive deluded self-confidence,' and says: 'She had a strange relationship with the truth. It's difficult to work with people who can't be honest.' That said, I can't help feeling she draws a lot of criticism for a business style that would be more admired if she was a man, particularly a man who went to public school. Her ambition as a teenager, when she worked as a bikini model, was to be 'the female Richard Branson' — and it's Branson's brash self-confidence that makes him both charismatic and unsinkable. Mone is roundly criticised for spreading stories that Julia Roberts wore her Ultimo bras, in the film Erin Brockovich. The claim was as fake as an Ultimo cleavage, but so what? There's a fair bit of snobbery and chauvinism among her critics. But she invites this, by constantly harping on her upbringing in 'Glasgow's East End' and by posing in her own products. All very tacky.
The Sun
25-05-2025
- Business
- The Sun
BBC host can't forget moment Baroness Bra Michelle Mone confessed to being a liar
BBC host Laura Kuenssberg has revealed the interview that 'sticks' with her the most is when Michelle Mone confessed to being a liar. Scots bra tycoon Mone spent two years fiercely denying through an army of lawyers any involvement with the firm PPE Medro, which had earned over £200million worth of Government contracts to supply face masks and surgical gowns during the Covid pandemic. 4 4 4 But in 2023 it was revealed that the Tory life peer and her three adult children had received £29million from the company via her second husband Doug Barrowman. That led to a 'Prince Andrew-style' TV showdown with the politics presenter on her weekly show Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. Appearing alongside Barrowman, 60, Baroness Mone, 53, made the jaw-dropping confession: 'I can't see what we've done wrong. Lying to the press is not a crime.' Now in a two-part BBC documentary The Rise and Fall of Michelle Mone to be shown next week, Laura, 48, said: 'In the end they were bizarrely quite honest about not having told the truth. Which is quite a strange experience. 'Then as she so memorably said, 'But Laura, it's not a crime to lie' That's a phrase that will always stick with me.' The controversy started when Lady Mone had used her government links to access a VIP Lane for fast track PPE procurement. But the former owner of bra company Ultimo then aggressively denied for three years that she and Barrowman had any connections to the company PPE Medro. When it was revealed that Mone and her family had personally benefitted from the contracts she announced she was stepping down from the House of Lords. Questions were then asked in parliament by the then leader of the opposition Sir Keir Starmer about how nearly £30million had ended up in the bank account of the Scottish businesswoman. Recalling before the build-up to the car-crash interview, Laura said: 'They obviously knew they had been lying at the beginning of it. So they felt they were in this trap. 'On the day (of the interview) the whole experience was eerily calm. There's no question Michelle Mone and Doug Barrowman became the pantomime villains in the story of the huge shambles of what went wrong with PPE. 'For Michelle, being able to grab public attention was always something she had in spades during her business career but things went wrong for her and you can't turn that attention off.' Mone and Barrowman are currently being investigated by the National Crime Agency. The couple continue to deny any wrongdoing. *The Rise and Fall of Michelle Mone begins on BBC Scotland on Monday May 26 at 10pm and BBC Two on May 28 at 9pm. Both episodes are available on BBC iPlayer from Monday. 4
