Escape To The Chateau’s Dick insists he has no regrets over leaving

Escape To The Chateau’s Dick Strawbridge and his wife Angel Adoree have remain defiant and insist they have no regrets over leaving their Channel 4 show.

Escape To The Chateau aired 50 episodes over nine seasons, before wrapping up in 2022 after it was dramatically axed due to behind-the-scenes bust-ups. 

The pair juggled doing up the castle in north-west France with raising two young children and running a wedding and event planning business.

Dick and Angel told Devon Live.removing cameras out of the family’s life was ‘the right thing to do’ so they could focus more on their children’s livelihood and navigating senior school.

Dick added: ‘Back in 2022, we had a huge conversation saying, “before they get all the pressures that young people have in their lives on them, it was time for us to walk away from the Escape”.’

Angel, 47, added: ‘They’d had the cameras here all year round, and it was exactly the right thing to do. What we’re not against, we haven’t sort of hidden them away from the media. They love it.’ 

Hosts Dick and Angel were dropped by Channel 4 three years ago, after being engulfed in the bullying scandal.

It was revealed in May 2023 that Channel 4 had cut ties with them following an independent investigation into their conduct.

The TV channel confirmed they would no longer work with the pair on any new productions ‘following a review’ after they were branded ‘spiky and volatile’.

A leaked recording revealed Angel branding a producer a ‘F***ed up little c**t’.

In June, she spoke out for the first time defending herself over the foul-mouthed rant as she explained she fell into a pre-laid trap.

The TV star admitted that while she wishes the incident hadn’t happened, she will not apologise for what she did.

Speaking on Elizabeth Day’s podcast How To Fail, Angel confessed in that moment she saw red: ‘I was the one in the wrong for losing my temper, but do you know what, I will not apologise – he was so disrespectful in our house, he was so upsetting to me, my family, and I stand by what I did.

‘If I was to apologise and say “I’m sorry for using bad language and chucking you out,” it would just be disingenuous to me.’

She added: ‘Would I like to erase that? Yeah, I’d love to. But I would also like to erase what he was doing, because my rage just didn’t pop out of nowhere.

‘It grew over time and it was provoked and therefore I’m not ashamed of what happened in the end, I just wish it hadn’t happened.’

Speaking about the backlash that followed her rant, Angel previously said: ‘The actual incident, it actually happened a long time ago – so it happened about six years ago.

‘We had so many amazing people filming Escape To The Chateau, but in this particular quite small timeframe, we had someone that wasn’t particularly very nice.

‘His behaviour was completely unacceptable, but it didn’t just happen in one little moment, it happened over lots of different occasions.

‘It was a high point towards the end of filming a series. We set a lot of stories in parallel activity. We were particularly busy, and I think that’s why we just didn’t have the head space to address his behaviour.

Recalling his behaviour she explained: ‘He was not very nice, he was doing these weird pictures of Dick killing animals and posting them on his Instagram. He was so horrible with the children.

‘There was this one incident, and I actually, truly believe that because he knew he was caught, I think in my heart, that is why he set up this filming.

‘Because the way that he was acting was how he’d never acted with me before. You don’t accidentally film someone when you’re not filming. Completely happened secretively and on purpose.

‘He broke all of the kids’ fishing rods and the next day I was upstairs and he came up in a really very out of character way for him and was really in my face, in a really angry, like he’d lost it kind of way.

‘I’ve not listened back, it makes me feel a little bit sick if I do. But obviously all of my friends have, and they’re like “I can hear you” – he actually took out what he said – “I can here you gradually getting more angry, more angry, more angry”.

‘And then I just say like “get out of my f***ing house”. I can’t even remember what I said. I think I said a really bad word beginning with c, I think that’s how p***ed off I must have been.’

Angel said the fallout after the incident felt really ‘disproportionate’, adding: ‘There was so much noise going on on one side.

‘And on the other side there was this sort of like outpouring of love and understanding, and people saying “you know what, it’s okay to be human”.

‘But when you have children you have to be able to zone this out, because the kids pick up on everything.

‘But for me the children put everything into perspective. And also this went global. I couldn’t believe the momentum that everything took.

‘I just had to focus on the family, the business. And looking back I probably did feel a little bit ashamed that the kids would listen to it, or someone at the children’s school would listen to it.

‘But I also think that anyone with a little bit of understanding or common sense, could possibly understand what happened.

‘I just regret that I didn’t do it sooner and probably in a calmer way. If I’d just taken a breath two weeks beforehand and thought to myself “we need to get him out and get a new person in”, then I think it would have played out differently.

‘We don’t teach our children to use bad language, but when you’re pushed that far and are seeing red, it’s kind of hard.

‘I don’t want to say I regret using it. I stand proud for just defending myself at that moment against his behaviour. I probably wish that I hadn’t said the c-word. I don’t even like that word.’

Asked if she might have been treated differently if she was a man, she said: ‘There’s a lot of people that make a great living out of that. There probably is a bit of truth in that. 

A recent snap the family posted to social media shows off their gorgeous, tucked-away vegetable garden, surrounded by lush trees and climbing plants. 

In the Instagram post, Dick was seen walking alongside the abundant beds with his children Arthur, 13, and Dorothy, 11. 

The youngsters were helping their father pick the homegrown produce, with stunning views of the turreted property behind them. 

Dick, 66, revealed their home is still an ongoing cycle of restoration and confessed it ‘won’t be finished for a long time’.

However, Dick did admit fans will notice a huge difference in how the château looks as he spoke about the progress they have made.

Dick said: ‘We still have bright ideas every day, and we won’t be finished for a long time, you know, because we’ve got projects going on over here.

‘The place has changed a lot, and it’s interesting when we walk around and show people. The last time people saw this [the chateau] was when we did our farewell. Our big sort of party to end the filming of Escape to the Chateau’.

The secluded part of the chateau’s sprawling 12-acre grounds is located close to the main house, presumably to provide easy access to the kitchen garden.

But it is seemingly surrounded by tall brick walls and shaded by lofty trees, perhaps explaining why viewers have not seen so much of this part of the property before. 

It is a beautiful outdoor space, with a charming arched entryway, neat and tidy planters and walkways lined by gorgeous flowers and shrubbery. 

As well as the walled garden, the family’s land boasts an enormous barn, lots of outdoor seating and a huge private lake. 

It looks just as good in winter as in summer, with another postcard-perfect snap shared by the family, in November last year, showing it covered in glittering frost. 

But despite the looks of their idyllic lifestyle abroad, all has not been plain sailing at the chateau in recent times.