Latest news with #Fruitcake
Daily Mirror
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
First Dates' Fred Sirieix admits to arguing with wife over huge issue at home
EXCLUSIVE: First Dates star Fred Sirieix married his fiancé of five years earlier this year in a Jamaican romantic ceremony but like any other couple, the pair have their tense moments Fred Sirieix is best known for making the nation smile or fall in love, but now the First Dates maître d' is set to make us cry too, in a deeply moving new episode of Who Do You Think You Are?. Fred, who was born in Limoges, France, discovers more about his grandfather's experiences during the Second World War, gaining a heartbreaking insight into those 'silent periods' which would affect Fred's own mother while she was growing up. Fresh from marrying his fiancée of five years, who he affectionately dubs 'Fruitcake', in a romantic ceremony in Jamaica in February, the charming 53-year-old Frenchman opens up exclusively to OK! about love, legacy and the highly emotional discoveries from the past that have brought him closer to his family than ever before… Congratulations on getting married earlier this year. How was the wedding? The wedding was amazing. We got married in Negril, in Jamaica. It's my favourite part of the country – seven miles of beach, discovered in the 60s by hippies. The music, the sand, feeling your feet in the water – you hear Bob Marley in the air. We were there for a couple of weeks. Days before the wedding we all had drinks on the beach, shorts on and just relaxed. That way, everyone already knew each other on the big day. And then, it was a huge party. It sounds like an absolute fairy tale… It was brilliant. But you know, we did it for us. We had friends and family there, but it was about Fruitcake and me. We've been together for 10 years. We're 53 and 51 – we're not spring chickens! But we believe in our relationship, and it was great to make a big deal out of it. It was about trust, commitment and celebrating what we have. It really elevated our relationship and sealed the way in which we feel for each other. It's been a beautiful experience. How is married life now? Is it any different? It just carries on. But I've got the ring – I feel it on my finger every day. Life is the same – we still argue as much as before! I'm still cooking, and she still complains because I haven't cleaned the kitchen properly. I always clean it, but apparently there's always something that's not clean enough. How did you first know Fruitcake was The One? Because I realised early on that I could totally trust her. She's genuine. She is who she says she is. The nickname Fruitcake is so sweet – literally! Where does it come from? That one's just between her and me. It works for us. She's Fruitcake. That's all you need to know. And that's all she wants you to know. We're happy that way. Being on First Dates , you have built a TV career around love and relationships. What's something you've learnt about love that you wish you knew 20 years ago? It's about trust. About knowing someone's got your back and you've got theirs. Love is not something that changes. Like Shakespeare said, 'Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.' We have to know what we want in life. A lot of people change their minds like the wind. One day they love you, the next they don't. I've seen it for years on First Dates . People say they want X, Y and Z – we give it to them, and suddenly they want A, B and C. It's not about 'settling' – it's about knowing what you've got is as good as it gets, then making it work. Your daughter Andrea [Spendolini-Sirieix] is an Olympic diver for Team GB. How did it feel to see her win a bronze medal at the Paris Olympics? Amazing. Andrea has been training since she was eight. The Olympics was her dream. And to win a medal in Paris – it was incredible. She's won medals for Britain and Italy, but never in France. She trained so hard she barely went to school, but she still got brilliant results. I've always said if you want something, you've got to work for it. No shortcuts. You're going to suffer. It's got to be painful. You're in the latest series of Who Do You Think You Are?. It's an emotional watch… Oh, I cried every day in fact, because it was very emotional. I went to Burgundy, where my grandfather was a prisoner of war. I went to the very place he was held during the Second World War. He escaped from there to go home, crossing the whole of France. It was so dangerous. The penalty was being shot. What I didn't realise is that my grandfather was suffering from PTSD, and so was my great-grandfather, who, incredibly, took part in the First World War from the very first battle to the last. And he survived. I mean, it's just incredible. Your calls to your mother during the show are very moving, too… I was calling her every day, telling her what we found. And as I was telling her things, it triggered stuff for her. She told me something I didn't know: that my grandfather would sometimes not speak for weeks, even months. It created a very strange atmosphere in the house. That affected my mum in a really big way. There was always a part of my mum I didn't fully understand. But by doing Who Do You Think You Are? , I just got it. That feeling of being abandoned, not loved, being left behind. My mum would have been six years old, and her father didn't speak to her? That's huge. It sounds like it helped you to bond in a new way… It really did. I remember when I called her, I was standing in the trenches – and she told me that story. My heart just sank. I never could have imagined it. But without doing this show, I wouldn't have known. It brought me closer to her. It strengthened our bond. It was a beautiful experience. Away from TV, you're doing amazing work with your charity, The Right Course, aren't you? Yes, I started working with this charity, which seeks to promote the education of young offenders, ex- young offenders or those at risk of offending through hospitality, when my daughter was born. At the time, there was a wave of crime in our local area, people were getting stabbed. I thought to myself, I've got to do something about it. Right now, we've got six restaurants in prisons, helping offenders train and get jobs; the goal is to have one in every prison. What sort of help do you give? When people come out of jail, they need three things: a job, a place to stay and contact with family. That's how we stop reoffending. We're making a small difference. We're working with the government and the Ministry Of Justice to scale it up. But I'm part of society. I've got a voice, and I've got to be able to use it – if everybody focuses on that, we can make the world better.
The Guardian
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Studio3 review – triple whammy of comedy is ferociously funny
If you were the gambling kind, you would have hedged your bets on A Play, a Pie and a Pint. What chance of survival would a lunchtime theatre have, especially one committed to staging 30 new plays a year, not to mention throwing in food and drink for the price of a ticket? But survive it has. On the go since 2004, the company has become a Glasgow West End institution. You can see why Jemima Levick, its former artistic director, thought it worth bringing some of its hits with her now she has taken over at the Tron. Studio3 is a three-play compendium, each seen individually or as an all-day marathon, given handsome new productions that star a quick-witted trio of actors: Jo Freer, Dani Heron and Kevin Lennon. There is nothing to link them beyond the chipboard surfaces of Kenny Miller's sets, which grow from cool austerity (Isla Cowan's Alright Sunshine) to red-white-and-blue vulgarity (Meghan Tyler's Fleg) to neurotic interior chaos (Frances Poet's Fruitcake). That, and the sense you can cover a surprising amount of ground in an hour. That is certainly the case in Alright Sunshine, which starts as an Edinburgh answer to Under Milk Wood and ends as a powerful critique of patriarchal oppression. Cowan's monologue is about Nicky, a police officer who keeps a discreet eye over the Meadows, the city-centre park where, as the day progresses, joggers give way to dog walkers, students, exercisers and drunks. In Debbie Hannan's crisp production, Heron navigates superbly from Cowan's amusing roll call of social types to a deeper line about male coercion, control and violence. Nicky is at once the obedient daughter, following her father's orders not to act like a girl; the motherly law-enforcer, keeping tempers in check with a kindly demeanour; and the potential victim, a lone woman walking in an area with a history of sexual assault. As playwright, Cowan packs a breezy comedy with polemical rage. Heron makes an abrupt switch in Fleg (the east Belfast pronunciation of flag) in which she appears as the sexualised projection of a loyalist's love of queen and country. Like a pole dancer togged up in Geri Halliwell's Brit awards dress, she has a dominatrix hold over Lennon's Bobby, whose patriotism is fuelled by self-destructive fury. Like a turbo-charged David Ireland play, Tyler's comedy has a cartoonish swagger, brought out by Dominic Hill's boisterous production. The boozy Bobby is a sort of Ulster unionist Homer Simpson, while his wife, the Marge-like Caroline, is played by Freer with equal abrasiveness. It is a ferocious and funny broadside against intolerance. Funny too is Poet's Fruitcake, previously known as The Prognostications of Mikey Noyce, in which Holly (Freer) discovers her old friend Mikey (Lennon) has not left the house since lockdown for fear of his Nostradamus-style predictions. His gnomic prophesies are wildly open to interpretation (or are they?), but play into our desire to control the future, avoid grief and escape regret. Levick's production has a claustrophobic pandemic energy, wrapping up an idiosyncratic trilogy with a punch. At the Tron theatre, Glasgow, until 16 May
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Fred Sirieix marries longtime partner Fruitcake after five-year engagement
Fred Sirieix has tied the knot with his partner, who he affectionately refers to as Fruitcake, five years after they got engaged. The First Dates star, 53, shared a photograph from their wedding in Jamaica on Instagram, with the date they officially said "Yes" to one another, which fell on Tuesday 18 February. He wore a tuxedo with a white shirt and jacket, with a black bow tie, trousers and shoes, while Fruitcake wore a strapless column wedding dress with a long lace-edged veil. The photograph showed the couple smiling as they held hands outside Pattoo Castle, with white confetti being sprinkled over them. In his Instagram Stories, Sirieix also shared a photograph of the couple leaning over the balcony during sunset. Little is known about Fruitcake, who is a 50-year-old fashion influencer specialising in "making high street fashion look luxe", according to her Instagram account. Sirieix and Fruitcake made their relationship public in 2018. During his stint on I'm A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! last year, Sirieix shared how he and Fruitcake met by simply smiling at each other while walking on a street in Peckham. "The way I met Fruitcake, I met her in Peckham. I was walking up and she was smiling at me, and I was smiling at her, and I liked her eyes," he recalled. "I just had to talk to her. I asked for her number. I said, 'Shall we go for a drink tonight?' That was nine years ago." The couple have largely kept their relationship out of the public eye. Fruitcake confirmed on Instagram that the affectionate nickname is not her real name, adding: "My mum would never!" However, Sirieix has previously spoken openly about their intimacy and said that he has "never enjoyed sex as much as now" after meeting his like-minded partner. He told The Sun in 2020: "I think it's a confidence thing and meeting another person who feels exactly the same way as me. "I like myself much more than when I was 20, I'm a better human being than when I was 20. It's that overall wisdom." View this post on Instagram A post shared by Fred Sirieix (@fred_sirieix) The couple got engaged in 2020 and had initially planned to have their wedding in 2021, but had to delay it due to Covid. Fruitcake shared some additional snaps from the big day on her Instagram Stories. One clip showed a long dining table decorated with candles and pink and white flowers, with fairy lights strung along the ceiling and walls. She also shared a close-up photo of her updo, featuring a sparkling tiara, as well as a clip of her stiletto heels by Rene Caovilla and dangling pearl earrings. While Fruitcake rarely shares posts about Sirieix, she did dedicate a special Instagram post to him on 27 January for his birthday, calling him her "favourite partner-in-crime". "Happy Birthday to my favourite partner-in-crime! Here's to more adventures, laughter, and love. Let's make this year the best one yet! In fact I know it will be." Sirieix was previously with Italian Alessandra Spendolini, who he shares Olympic bronze medal winner Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix and son Lucien with. Additional reporting by PA Read more about sex and relationships: Harriet Walter says marrying later in life is 'exactly when you want to be married' (Yahoo Life UK, 3-min read) 'We've been married nearly 70 YEARS, and here's the secret to everlasting love' (Manchester Evening News, 2-min read) Seven ways to find love later in life as Kristin Scott Thomas marries at 64 (Yahoo Life UK, 4-min read)
The Independent
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
First Dates star Fred Sirieix ties the knot with partner Fruitcake
First Dates star Fred Sirieix has tied the knot with his partner, a woman he refers to as Fruitcake, this week. The 53-year-old French maitre d'hotel wed his fiancee – who not much is known about – of around five years on Tuesday in a ceremony in Negril, Jamaica. On Fruitcake's social media account, she refers to herself as aged 50 and a fashionista with style tips. Sirieix shared an image to Instagram of the pair wearing wedding clothes, and wrote '18.02.2025' to signify the wedding date. He was quickly congratulated by Dragons' Den star Sara Davies, A Place In The Sun and Homes Under the Hammer presenter Lucy Alexander, and Olympian Greg Rutherford. Davies wrote: 'Huge congratulations you two and fruitcake looks stunning!' Alexander said: 'Ahhh congratulations Fred .. how wonderful' Rutherford wrote: 'Huge congratulations my friend.' Sirieix was previously with Italian Alessandra Spendolini, who he shares Olympic bronze medal winner Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix and son Lucien with. Last year, he was part of the BBC's Olympic coverage in Paris and is also known for travel shows including Remarkable Places To Eat. Sirieix has presented BBC series My Million Pound Menu, and competed on ITV's I'm A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! and the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing Christmas special.
