The ring was dazzling; an 18-carat diamond surrounded by an array of smaller stones perched on the dainty outstretched engagement finger of a beaming Alice Vanderpump.
The remarkable image, which was posted to Instagram this week by ultra-wealthy reality star Kenneth Tong, showed Alice, the 24-year-old Made in Chelsea star, flashing the huge rock at a restaurant table with Tong. The comments from his 11 million followers were rapturous – but at least one viewer was furious: Alice’s husband.
Sam Vanderpump, a member of one of television’s most glittering dynasties and Alice’s husband as of 2025, was so enraged by the post that he sent Tong a direct message on the app, ordering him to delete the image and claiming that his wife had only met the now 40-year-old once before.
However, Kenneth, who first found notoriety on Big Brother back in 2009, tells a different story.
Now Tong tells me that just months before Alice met Sam, now 29, back in 2024, she had become so close to Tong that he had lavished her with luxury gifts and even proposed himself with that 18-carat ring.
Despite her posing with the ring on her finger representatives for Alice firmly reject this, stating that that there was no marriage proposal – she simply jokingly tried his ring on – and that she met Kenneth only once on a trip abroad.
Among the items he claims to have given her during their friendship was a cashmere Louis Vuitton jacket, multiple Chanel handbags and a £3,700 vintage yellow-gold Van Cleef necklace.
Fascinating photographs seen by The Daily Mail and published here offer a glimpse into a friendship that began on Instagram ‘years ago’, and developed in 2023 when Alice was a model in China and Tong flew out to visit her.
In one image, Alice is seen cuddling Tong, the pair dressed in matching white robes as she tucks her head into his chest, her face half-hidden.
In another, the pair pose beneath an opulent chandelier in a lavish interior beside a gold grand piano, while a further picture captures them standing side-by-side in the entrance of a grand room posing in front of a huge mirror.
But the most striking image of all is that showing Alice smiling as she extends her hand towards the camera, wearing that huge diamond ring.
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mail, Tong tells of their friendship – which he claims was characterised by limitless extravagance.
‘No material need of hers was ever denied,’ he tells me. ‘She wanted Van Cleef, she got it. Her phone was older so we went and got a new one immediately. Want Chanel bags? Let’s get two or three.
‘Only the finest of everything. The best suite at the Londoner Macau. The best suite at the Four Seasons Guangzhou.’
And as for that ring?
‘I did propose,’ he insists. ‘It’s an 18-carat natural colour diamond ring set in platinum.’ Alice’s representatives deny this.
He adds: ‘Frankly, even if she asked for an apartment at One Hyde Park [the most expensive development in London] I’d have bought it for her.
‘Alice is a successful model and made her own money. She never needed anything from me. I was happy to give her everything she wanted, though.’
Now based in Sydney, he explains how their globe-trotting relationship began.
In 2023, Alice – then known professionally as Alice Yaxley – was modelling overseas, working with brands including ASOS, Motel Rocks and Missguided, and having signed with four different management agencies while taking lucrative placements in China and Bali.
It was in China, Tong says, they cemented their friendship.
‘We met on Instagram. We spoke for years on and off,’ he adds. ‘I flew to China to see her when she was living in Guangzhou. It was magical.’
Despite the lavish lifestyle and grand gestures, Tong admits they parted ways shortly after meeting in the flesh.
‘She ended it, sadly,’ he tells me. ‘I was heartbroken.’ On the proposal, he adds simply: ‘She turned me down.’
Kenneth Tong was born in Toronto into an extremely wealthy Chinese family and raised in Hong Kong. He claims his fortune stemmed from his grandfather, who made a key innovation in plastic injection moulding – riches the family has lived off ever since.
Sent to boarding schools in Hong Kong and New York from a young age, he has said he was repeatedly expelled as a ‘juvenile delinquent’ before being enrolled at Fettes College in Edinburgh – the prestigious school once attended by former prime minister Sir Tony Blair.
Tong’s stint on Big Brother UK in 2009, lasted just five days before he scaled a wall to leave the house.
Even in that short time, he attracted criticism after he called a fellow contestant, model Sophie Reade, now 36, ‘fat’ and told another housemate during an argument that, were they not in the Big Brother house, he would ‘pay someone to deal with (them)’.
He also claimed to have connections to ‘some of the most dangerous men in the world,’ which he later suggested were Chinese Triad gangsters he had encountered during his youth.
But it was his behaviour after Big Brother that cemented his reputation as, in his own words, ‘one of the original social media provocateurs.’
In 2010, Tong provoked global backlash after promoting what he called ‘managed anorexia’ on social media, appearing to endorse the eating disorder as a kind of perverse lifestyle choice. He posted a stream of inflammatory messages suggesting women should ‘get thin or die trying’, adding that it was better for a girl to ‘risk [her] life dieting than be sub-par by being a plus-size’.
The backlash was immediate and fierce, with Rihanna and Katy Perry among the global stars tweeting their anger.
Tong later claimed the episode had been a ‘scientific experiment,’ apologising and pledging to donate to an eating disorder charity.
Alice, meanwhile, is from London, and started modelling at the age of 16, having worked for major brands like ASOS, New Look and River Island.
At 19 she underwent a ‘traumatic’ surgery after suffering serious burns to her face, arms and chest after opening the bonnet of a friend’s overheating car that then reportedly exploded.
Today, she is married to Sam – nephew of Lisa Vanderpump, 64, the formidable matriarch behind The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and Vanderpump Rules series – and is now part of one of television’s most recognisable families.
Already a familiar face on Made in Chelsea, Sam met Alice in July 2024, with their relationship quickly accelerating into a whirlwind romance.
After just six months, he proposed – with co-stars and close friends, husbands Ollie and Gareth Locke, 39 and 37, said to have helped him choose the engagement ring. The couple went on to tie the knot in an intimate ceremony at Chelsea Registry Office in December that year.
The wedding came just months after Sam revealed he had ‘nearly died’ after liver and kidney failure developed into life-threatening sepsis, having spent days bedridden with dehydration and severe back pain.
Sam told the Daily Mail how quick-thinking Alice phoned an ambulance after the reality star became ‘delirious’.
It was only later that Sam announced on an episode of Made in Chelsea that he had been diagnosed with irreversible end-stage liver disease, with his life expectancy limited to four to five years without a transplant.
Born with the rare condition of congenital hepatic fibrosis of the liver and polycystic kidney disease, his illness lay dormant until December 2024, when his symptoms flared up.
The couple have since welcomed a son, Marmaduke – known as Duke – born at the Kensington Wing of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in February, with the name chosen in honour of Sam’s late father, Mark, who died in 2018 at the age of 59.
Today, Alice appears alongside Sam, Lisa and friends Ollie and Gareth Locke in the latest series of Vanderpump Rules on the US streaming network Bravo, offering viewers a glimpse into her new life at the heart of the Vanderpump orbit.
But behind that polished new chapter lies a very different story – one defined by excess, a friendship far from the world she inhabits today – and a spectacular diamond ring.
