Cheerleading for Prince Harry and Meghan doesn’t appear to be very lucrative.
Facing action to close his publishing business, royal biographer Omid Scobie has filed financial details for three consecutive years — and they don’t make happy reading.
Despite all the hype surrounding his sycophantic book about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their decision to quit royal duties, Finding Freedom, it turns out that Scobie’s business is in the red. The firm, MeYou Ltd, faced a ‘compulsory strike-off’ after Scobie, 40, failed to provide legally required financial information since 2019.
Late last week, he filed three sets of accounts in one go — and the latest reveals a deficit of £17,000.
While his hagiographic book went into cringe-making detail about Harry’s romance with the American former actress, his company accounts for 2021 comprise just two pages, with only one containing any numbers.
They report just £4,000 in assets and bills of £20,000 due to be paid within the year. The deficit in his capital and reserves is an increase in the £15,840 reported for 2020. While in 2019 accounts it was £2,607 in the black.
Facing action to close his publishing business, royal biographer Omid Scobie has filed financial details for three consecutive years — and they don’t make happy reading
Failure to have provided financial details would have resulted in a fine of £1,500 for accounts that are more than six months overdue, according to Companies House. If a firm is struck off compulsorily, all its assets can be seized by the Government.
A former writer on the celebrity gossip magazine Heat, Scobie is not a details man. In August 2020, he told The Times he had ‘just turned 33’. Then, he said he was 38. Companies House stated that he was born in July 1981, making him 39, at that time.
Scobie, who’s royal editor of U.S. website Harper’s Bazaar, was among those who whipped up criticism of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s tour of the Caribbean last month, highlighting alleged public relations moments that smacked of ‘colonialism’, such as cropped images of the couple greeting fans through a fence in Trench Town, Jamaica.
Scobie could not be reached for comment.
Dad Bernie, 91, puts his boy in the driving seat
Formula 1 tycoon Bernie Ecclestone has been getting his son, Ace, behind the wheel of a racing car, even though the boy is only one
When you’re a father at 91, you don’t have any time to waste.
And Formula 1 tycoon Bernie Ecclestone has been getting his son, Ace, behind the wheel of a racing car, even though the boy is only one.
‘Ace’s first racing car experience,’ says his mother, Fabiana, 44, who is the billionaire’s third wife. The tot is pictured with ear protectors at Interlagos circuit in Sao Paulo, in his mother’s native Brazil.
She was elected last year as a vice-president of the FIA.
That led to the motor sport organisation’s new president, Mohammed ben Sulayem, insisting that Bernie was not involved behind the scenes.
Oops! Mary Beard's brush with porn siteIt's not just Tory MPs who unwittingly end up viewing pornography online. Even high-minded BBC Arts presenter Dame Mary Beard admits to being caught out.
While Neil Parish was looking for tractors, Professor Beard was searching for works by 16th century Venetian painter Titian.
