24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Michelle Mone documentary does battle with the baroness
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THERE is a moment in this documentary when a young Michelle Mone is showing a journalist around her swanky new offices. One wall is papered entirely with newspaper cuttings, each story a free advert for her wares.
In those days, Mone loved being talked about. Now she communicates via her lawyers, or as is the case here, in long captioned responses to points raised in a two-hour, two-part investigation by Rogan Scotland for BBC Two, BBC Scotland, and iPlayer.
Mone's obsession with the media and vice versa forms a large part of the film. It opens with various talking heads summing Mone up in three words. 'Style over substance', says one former editor. 'Shameless self-promoting grifter', says the woman from the FT. 'Is she a villain or a victim?' asks the narrator, Sophie Kennedy Clark. Sounds like minds have already been made up.
But back to the start we go with Mone's origins story. East End of Glasgow girl, left school at 15 with no qualifications, went into modelling, married, had children, started business with her husband selling push-up bras, Julia Roberts, Erin Brockovich - except wait, hold that phone. As the film's costume designer said on record, an Ultimo bra was not used in the film. Mone's frequent and incorrect claims otherwise, laid bare in one of several snappily edited sequences, could have been checked but weren't. As one editor puts it, 'When it came to Michelle Mone, the story was almost too good to debunk.'
There are too many journalists as commentators in the film. It's understandable given how close the two sides were, but little to nothing new emerges. We are told more than 50 of Mone's former employees were approached but none would agree to speak on camera. A few do, with their identities hidden. Again, there's nothing that the average observer would not already know or could work out. Mone had a temper, eh? You don't say.
The story about the FT reporter being phoned by a 'press officer' for Mone was new to me. 'I did wonder if it was Michelle Mone herself,' says the journalist. If true, it's a move straight out of the young Donald Trump playbook.
Some footage looks fresh, including scenes from Mone's gaffe-strewn launch in Australia, and I had not seen her American business coach, Dr Ted Anders, before. But by and large the material is familiar, with only the quality of the contributions varying. Jack Irvine is vinegary good value.
The film would have benefited from a strong authorial voice rather than just a narrator who moved things along. Perhaps it is enough to bring the story together in a way a younger generation can understand. Indeed, as the film goes on, Mone begins to remind me of one of those Netflix heroines, usually blonde and young, who have it all only to lose it. Maybe a 'based on a true story' drama is on its way.
Portrait of Michelle Mone in business heyday (Image: PHOTOGRAPHER:Alistar Devine)
After a sprint through indyref, elevation to the House of Lords and Covid, the road ends on Laura Kuenssberg's Sunday show and *that* train wreck interview with Mone and her husband Doug Barrowman. 'In the end, they were, bizarrely, quite honest about not having told the truth,' says Kuenssberg.
On that note, the films give way to Mone and Barrowman's written responses to the various allegations made. It's Mone's way of saying that she's not done fighting yet. You better believe it.
The Rise and Fall of Michelle Mone, BBC Scotland, Monday; BBC2, Wednesday. Both episodes on iPlayer on Monday.
