He led ‘the great sausage revolt’ on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! – when hungry contestants on the ITV reality show demanded larger food rations.
And now by contrast, TV chef Antony Worrall Thompson faces demands for smaller portions from diners at his restaurant Grill Off The Green in Kew, west London.
‘We’re going more for sharing menus now – a lot of what’s happening in the restaurant industry is caused by [weight-loss injections] Mounjaro and Ozempic and people’s appetites,’ he tells me.
‘There are 2.5 million people in the UK on these jabs. They are expensive, so they are usually taken by people who eat out in restaurants, or more upmarket restaurants,’ explains the veteran Ready Steady Cook star, adding: ‘They still want to eat out, but they don’t want to eat as much.’
Grill Off The Green, which Antony and his wife Jay have run since 2019, offers customers modern British cuisine, specialising in meat, burgers and fish as well as vegan and vegetarian offerings.
‘We’ve now got to adjust to modern trends,’ says the restaurateur, 74.
Weight-loss jabs such as Mounjaro and Ozempic or Wegovy have been used by prominent figures including funnyman James Corden, TV star Sharon Osbourne and polymath Stephen Fry.
Last year Fry revealed that he’d had to stop taking Ozempic because it made him vomit up to five times a day.
Antony, however, is uninterested in such treatments, the side effects of which can include nausea, heartburn and dizziness. ‘I have not taken it [a weight-loss drug] – I don’t put anything nasty in my body,’ the father of four confirms.
‘I’d rather do it [lose weight] myself. I’m working in the gym most days now. I have lost two stone myself.’
Susannah’s nepo baby
What Not To Wear’s Susannah Constantine showed up in support of her daughter, Esme Bertelsen, 24, whose client launched the new sports bar Box Piccadilly.
Esme, a publicist, embraces the nepo baby label, but Susannah worries it could hinder her.
She tells me: ‘Esme’s very lucky and privileged because of her upbringing but she’s struck out on her own.
‘I think the nepo baby label becomes a disadvantage when you’re branching out on your own.
‘You have to work on your own merit to be successful; you’re not going to be successful just because you’re the son or daughter of someone.’
Beeb star’s mistaken identity in Mexico…
Countryfile star Anita Rani might be a household name here in the UK – but fame didn’t follow her across the Atlantic.
During filming for the BBC’s Celebrity Race Across The World, Rani and her father (above) were mistaken for refugees while travelling through Central America.
Speaking about the encounter, Anita’s father Bal, from Bradford, tells me at the show’s VIP screening at the Curzon Soho in London: ‘We were filming in a hotel in Mexico and the owners thought we were refugees.
‘It is because we kept asking where the border was, as we were trying to get to the next location point.’
In his Liberal Democrats were booted from office after breaking their electoral pledge to oppose student tuition fee increases during the coalition years.
And Nick Clegg seems to have changed his tune on another pressing matter.
Asked if he supports controversial digital IDs, our former deputy prime minister delicately tells me: ‘I’m not ideologically and implacably immediately opposed.’
Peter James substitutes the names of Royal Household staff members in his new novel, The Hawk Is Dead, in which fictional detective Roy Grace and Queen Camilla search for a killer in Buckingham Palace.
Now Her Majesty’s favourite crime writer learns that truth is imitating fiction behind palace walls.
‘I’ve heard Camilla is calling senior members of the Royal Household by the nicknames I’ve given them in the book,’ he tells me, divulging: ‘She’s calling the master of the Royal Household [Vice Admiral Sir Tony Johnstone-Burt] ‘Tommy’ – in the book he’s “General Tommy”’.
Former Tory MEP Stanley Johnson, who welcomed China’s ambassador to his London home and to the premiere of his China travel film last year, is not among those outraged by the China spying controversy.
Asked if the issue has been overblown, he tells me: ‘Totally,’ adding: ‘China has become a political football.’
‘Each side thinks, “Oh, be tough on China, that’s a good one” – like being tough on immigration or on climate change,’ explains the I’m A Celebrity veteran, 85.
Stanley, who visited the People’s Republic this month, has told me: ‘We have to get on with China.’
Maya goes back to school for a reality check
She’s co-hosted the BRIT Awards at London’s O2 Arena, yet Maya Jama was more nervous when faced with a gaggle of sixth formers.
‘[I] can confirm a room of 200-plus students is scarier than doing live TV,’ the Love Island presenter admits after visiting Parliament Hill School, a self-described feminist girls’ school with a mixed sixth form in Camden, north London.
Maya spoke to students as part of her MIJ Mentorship scheme, which aims to help women from underrepresented backgrounds enter the creative industries.
