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DJ and petrolhead Chris Evans has bought a £14million waterside mansion in Marlow, Buckinghamshire – which boasts a private marina with enough room for 30 boats.

Evans, 60, who grew up on a council estate in Warrington, is joining a celebrity crowd in the Thames-side town that includes two of his closest friends: the chef Tom Kerridge and the entrepreneur Peter Jones.

The mansion, which he shares with wife Natasha and their four children – Noah, 17, Eli, 14, and twins Walt and Boo, seven – was built 15 years ago, after a cottage on the site was demolished.

The eco-friendly building has six ensuite bedrooms, a snooker room bar, study, reading room and another room reserved just for dogs – handy, as he is devoted to his rescue pooch, Sparkles. There are even lifts to whisk guests to the different levels.

Outside, there is a swimming pool with a pergola and loggia; giving way to trees and, on the north of the property, a long stretch of water.

It's not Evans's first property in Marlow. In 2019, he bought a 'crash pad' for £4million, where he would spend the night after hanging out with Jones and Kerridge.

But he's clearly fallen in love with the area, and made this purchase quietly at the end of last year via his company Zimple, with the aid of a mortgage from Coutts. He and his family were previously based in Ascot, Berkshire.

Evans's fortune rocketed in 2000 when he sold the Ginger Media Group for £30million. He is said to be worth around £70million, which includes his collection of cars – itself worth £30million.

DJ and petrolhead Chris Evans, pictured right with Tom Kerridge, has bought a £14million waterside mansion in Marlow, Bucks – with a private marina with enough room for 30 boats

His son Noah shares his enthusiasm for motors, and in 2012, Evans bought a road-legal replica of the original Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car – for £500,000 – for the two of them to zip around in together.

He still presents a weekday breakfast show on Virgin Radio; and created Carfest, which raises money for UK children's charities.

He also presents TFI Unplugged on YouTube, which was picked up for a six-episode run on Channel 4 in April this year. The show was based on his 1990s hit chat show TFI Friday, but with 'only 1 per cent of the budget', Evans quipped.

After leaving school at 16, Evans worked in various jobs including as a Tarzan-o-gram before finding his niche as a DJ on Piccadilly Radio in Manchester.

He was hired on Channel 4's The Big Breakfast, later adding the gameshow Don't Forget Your Toothbrush, and was at the peak of his fame when presenting the breakfast show on BBC Radio 1, at the height of the Britpop era.

He fell out with bosses after a 17-hour pub crawl. There was friction, too, about unplanned holidays and his time-keeping; and he eventually left after demanding every Friday off.

Evans has been married three times. First to former Loose Women presenter Carol McGiffin (from 1991 to 1993); then to pop star and actress Billie Piper (in 2001, when she was 18). They separated after three years and divorced amicably.

He met his model and professional golfer wife Natasha Shishmanian after they were paired together in a celebrity golf tournament, and they married in 2007.

The big screen beckons for Idris's model wife

Sabrina Elba – the model turned charity activist wife of British star Sir Idris – has just wrapped her first leading acting role.

Sabrina, 38, plays a Somali pharmacist and single mother who falls for a Jamaican man in the romantic comedy Not Like Us, which is slated for release next year. It was made in London.

This confirms a new direction for Sabrina, who after dabbling in film at university returned to acting in 2022 with a small role in Three Thousand Years Of Longing – which starred her husband. She had a part in the 2025 Alan Ritchson film Playdate; and in the upcoming sci-fi film White Mars.

Sabrina, who founded the Elba Hope Foundation to 'empower youth, promote sustainability, and create transformative change across Africa' said about her role in Three Thousand Years: 'I would never, ever take anything on that I felt was interrupting charity work, but I do want to see how this balance grows.

'It's a bit of a conflict personally sometimes, to be helping real people but then to be doing something so glamorous. So it's also a balancing act, and some days are harder than others.'

She and Idris met in a jazz bar in 2017 and were married in 2019.

Sabrina Elba – the model turned charity activist wife of British star Sir Idris – has just wrapped her first leading acting role

We don't know who'll be the new 007... but it won't be Harris

The hunt for the next 007 continues, but apparently British hopeful Harris Dickinson is out.

Dickinson was among a handful of contenders selected to move forward to the next phase of casting in August (Callum Turner seems to be the front-runner still).

But journalist Jeff Sneider told The Hot Mic podcast that Dickinson let producers David Heyman and Amy Pascal know he was dropping out, because he felt too tired to commit to the mega-franchise.

He's coming off playing John Lennon in the Beatles film quadrilogy and has not stopped working since being catapulted to fame in 2022's Triangle Of Sadness.

Someone will get the role by the end of this year, with production starting in 2027. Despite the fact that there is still no final script.

The hunt for the next 007 continues, but apparently British hopeful Harris Dickinson is out

Unhappy ending in the story of Portman and the novelist she once called a friend

Is this a betrayal, or art, or both?

Actress Natalie Portman is said to be outraged after the British novelist Rachel Cusk, once a close friend, wrote a book which appears to be based on her character and life story.

The Life Of M comes out next month and Portman, best known for Black Swan and the Star Wars films, is said to be devastated at the way Cusk has depicted her inner thoughts in print.

The pair have known each other for years; and Portman is a fan of Cusk's work, having chosen one of her novels for her book club in 2022.

Awkwardly, both now live in Paris.

The Life Of M is about a movie star ('M'), who agrees to let a writer friend produce an autobiography.

The book begins: 'A little while ago, I told the actor M that I was thinking of writing her autobiography. She liked the idea. She's a good sport.'

Actress Natalie Portman is said to be outraged after the British novelist Rachel Cusk, above, wrote a book which appears to be based on her character and life story

The narrator explains she met M in a bookshop and that 'in addition to being a film star, she was the model for a major brand, and her image looked out everywhere, from shop windows and hoardings and the rain-streaked perspex of bus shelters'. (Portman is the face of Miss Dior perfume.)

The narrator observes that M became famous as a child and that 'the script of her first film originally included several scenes in which the child was shown wanting or inviting sexual interaction with the central male character'. It adds that such scenes were cut after M's mother objected.

Portman's controversial role in the 1994 film Leon, filmed when she was 11 years old, was about a girl's relationship with an adult hitman played by Jean Reno. Her mother objected to numerous scenes, which were cut.

The book portrays M as someone who is gradually transformed by her fame into something not quite human... living in a mansion 'like a big doll's house, with her as a doll inside of it'.

Alienated from normal society, she finds it challenging to listen to friends talking about themselves.

The book ends with a confrontation between M and the writer, who is accused of making her subject 'identifiable', as well as filling her pages with fabrications.

Helen's very catty about her co-stars

Helen Baxendale complains that making new ITV thriller The Dark was a far from comfortable experience – because she doesn't like cats.

Baxendale, who plays grieving mother Bethany Morgan in the show, said: 'My character spends time at the home of a man called Michael, who rather likes cats.

'There were as many as 20 of them on set at any one time, on the basis that between five or ten of them could be wrangled into appearing on camera if the others wandered off. I stayed as far away as I could!'

Helen also had to carry a firearm for part of the filming. 'That was probably a bigger challenge than the cats,' she admitted. 'My arms are actually quite weedy and it took all my strength to keep the gun pointing in the right direction.'

All episodes of The Dark are available on ITVX.

Mixed news for Mick Jagger

The Stones' latest album Foreign Tongues has gone top ten in the US Billboard 200 charts with 53,000 sales.

But Paul McCartney's Boys Of Dungeon Lane sold 63,000 copies earlier this summer and landed at No 5, while the Stones entered at No 7.

The pair nurse a 'healthy' rivalry and apparently Jagger definitely noticed when McCartney's offering failed to make it to No 1 in the States.

The Stones' latest album Foreign Tongues has gone top ten in the US Billboard 200 charts with 53,000 sales

Tills are ringing at Victoria Beckham Beauty

Lady Beckham's business empire will report its earnings at the end of this month but sources indicate this year's revenues at her make-up and skincare brand are 'over $100million'.

And marketers at The Growth Shop claim to have overseen 241 per cent growth this year, largely thanks to Facebook ads.

Lady Beckham's business empire will report its earnings at the end of this month but sources indicate this year's revenues at her make-up and skincare brand are 'over $100million'

Leo Woodall's new film is a hit

Tattooed, swearing incessantly – and stealing every scene he can – here is British actor Leo Woodall in Tony, the forthcoming film about the beloved late American chef and author Anthony Bourdain.

Woodall plays Tony's co-worker in a restaurant in Massachusetts. Dominic Sessa plays Bourdain and Antonio Banderas is their culinary mentor.

Reactions of the critics to early screenings have been very positive – especially when it comes to Woodall.