Look what happened to London's wild set

Published May 28, 2016

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London - They were the wildest crowd in London, notorious for their parties and allegations of partner-swapping.

But 20 years on from their hedonistic heyday, the Primrose Hill set - so-called because of the leafy area where they lived - are all middle aged. So how are the former hell-raisers - who included supermodel Kate Moss and actress Sadie Frost - coping with the fact the party’s over?

 

FROM THREESOMES TO LONELINESS

SADIE FROST, 50

THEN: After marrying actor Jude Law in 1997, Frost became the lynchpin of the set. Scandal followed her: her daughter Iris, then aged two, accidentally swallowed half an ecstasy tablet during a birthday party at Soho House in 2002, and there were allegations of partner swapping with Danny Goffey of rock band Supergrass and his wife, Pearl Lowe. It was even reported that Sadie, Kate Moss and their friend, heiress Davinia Taylor, had a “cocaine-fuelled” lesbian threesome in 2002.

After splitting from Jude in 2003 - which Frost blamed on her severe post-natal depression - she was given £6-million as a settlement, plus the marital home, where she raised her children with Law: Rafferty, 19, Iris, 15, and Rudy, 13; as well as eldest son, Finlay, 25, from her marriage to Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp.

NOW: Yoga-loving and clean-living, Frost has written a book about wellbeing called Nourish. These days, she breakfasts on chia seeds and green smoothies rather than Veuve Cliquot. Indeed, alcohol is largely a thing of the past.

Loneliness, though, isn’t. Frost confesses to spending regular Saturday nights alone at the cinema, and her forays into romance have been largely ill-fated. She dated a series of toyboys, and a long romance with Kylie Minogue’s ex, male model James Gooding, came to nothing - aside from a police caution for her after a bust-up in 2012. Her current relationship, with multi-millionaire Darren Strowger seems, thankfully, calmer.

Professionally, there have been lows, too. Frost completed a degree course in film and produced her first feature film, a “psychosexual romance” called Buttercup Bill - but it opened and closed in a single weekend and took just £4 132 (about R84 000).

She’s reflective on her mad years: “I think through times of difficulty, like losing a parent, postnatal depression or divorce, I veered off the rails. But there’s part of me that always wants to get back to who I am, to what makes me feel good.”

 

A £4M FORTUNE FRITTERED AWAY

MEG MATHEWS, 50

THEN: Meg’s style was distinctive: surgically enhanced breasts on show, the outfit usually skimpy and eye-catching, and, infamously, one nipple pierced with a bolt. The party-planner’s relationship with Oasis’s Noel Gallagher - whom she married in 1997 - was hedonistic, and Noel even joked that he sprinkled cocaine on his cornflakes. However, he found his wife’s excesses alarming at times, and a move to the Home Counties couldn’t save their union. Months after daughter Anais was born in 2000, they split.

 

THANKYOU @FlauntMagazine #WalterandZoniel @DanielLismore for including me in the #AlphaAction series Love the pic! xx pic.twitter.com/CMTWVpqY0g

— Fran Cutler (@FranCutler) September 23, 2015

 

NOW: Despite receiving £4-million from Noel, most of it appears to have been frittered away. She had to sell her mansion for a smaller house in Primrose Hill, because the “overheads” were “too much”.

There was also the spectre of addiction. In 2006, she went to rehab for two months: “I was drinking too much and it wasn’t having a good effect on me. I hadn’t dealt with my divorce . . . I mean, I was heartbroken about me and Noel. I had to learn to let all the anger and bitterness and emotion go.”

Re-invention followed, with spells as an interior designer and animal rights campaigner. She even stood unsuccessfully for election as an MEP on an animal welfare ticket.

Romance has been similarly chequered: past lovers include Simon Jordan, owner of football team Crystal Palace, and a millionaire businessman who was jailed for handling stolen goods.

Ageing clearly worries her, and she’s admitted to having Botox and a “thread lift” procedure, where fine threads sewn into the face gently lift sagging skin.

The old gang remain loyal, and Sadie Frost attended her 50th birthday party last month.

 

ADDICTION AND CUSTODY BATTLES

DAVINIA TAYLOR, 38

THEN: Blonde heiress Davinia starred in the soap Hollyoaks, but her off-screen life has been far more dramatic. Her father made a £200-million fortune from toilet paper and she married David Beckham’s best pal, football agent Dave Gardner in 2003. Davinia’s home became the centre for Primrose Hill parties, which she admits hosting up to five nights a week.

NOW: The debauched lifestyle wreaked havoc. She appeared to live through every spit and cough of her friend Kate Moss’s disastrous liaison with druggy rocker Pete Doherty - indeed, Doherty was seen smoking crack cocaine on Davinia’s father’s yacht in 2005. And Moss and daughter Lila moved into Davinia’s basement after her 2007 split from Doherty.

Throughout, though, Davinia had her own issues. Her marriage to Gardner ended in 2010, as she battled alcohol addiction and depression before being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and Gardner won custody of their son, Grey.

However, her recovery from addiction has brought its own problems: she’s no longer able to socialise with friends such as Moss, who are not sober. In 2011, she had another son, Jackson, by an unnamed friend.

 

MENOPAUSAL AND LOVELORN

PATSY KENSIT, 48

THEN: Famously pictured in bed with Liam Gallagher on the cover of Vanity Fair’s Cool Britannia issue, actress Patsy dumped her Simple Minds second husband Jim Kerr for Liam, whom she married in 1997.

Her happiness was short-lived and she later admitted that her romance with Liam was so miserable that she cried every day. They had a son, Lennon, in 1999, before separating after she discovered Liam had fathered a love child four months after their wedding.

NOW: Patsy has discussed her problems with the side-effects of the menopause, following a hysterectomy at 45. She said: “My mind seems to snap and I lose my train of thought. I’ll go into the supermarket for a packet of fish fingers and come out with a pair of tights and a cabbage.”

Romantically, things haven’t improved for Patsy whose first husband was Dan Donovan of Big Audio Dynamite. She married her fourth husband, DJ Jeremy Healy, in 2009, but it lasted just a year.

Patsy admitted: “I’m looking forward now, with one million per cent conviction, that I definitely won’t be getting married again. I can’t tell you how foolish and ashamed I feel.”

 

ONE WHO SURVIVED THE MADNESS

FRAN CUTLER, 53

THEN: Publican’s daughter Cutler virtually created the Cool Britannia scene after starting a party-planning business with Meg Mathews.

Known as the Party Rottweiler, her Thursday nights at the Met Bar in Park Lane were legendary, and Kate Moss and Oasis were regular guests.

As to the partner swapping that reportedly went on, Cutler commented: “What a load of b*llocks. I mean, a group of people hanging out together and it was all about people ‘swapping over’.

“To this day I still think, if only they knew.”

NOW: Her company with Meg, 2Active, was dissolved in 2010. Today, she has a “small team” at Fran Cutler Events, but is not a director of the company.

Fran never married, but has a 16-year-old daughter, Mercy.

Some things, though, haven’t changed. Her 50th birthday bash, in 2013, was at notoriously decadent The Box nightclub, with Kate Moss, Sadie Frost, Rita Ora and Cara Delevingne all on the guest list.

A friend said: “Fran’s done the best of all of them. She survived the madness.”

 

AND THEIR LOUCHE LEADER

KATE MOSS, 42

THEN: After the end of her four-year romance with actor Johnny Depp in 1998, Kate threw herself into a hedonistic whirl which continues to this day.

In her Primrose-Hill years there were reported liaisons with JFK Jr, Liam Gallagher, actors Sean Penn, Leonardo Di Caprio and Billy Zane, and rocker Lenny Kravitz, among others.

In 2002 she had a daughter, Lila Grace, with Jefferson Hack, a magazine editor whom she dated for four years before becoming “bored” of him.

NOW: Her four-year marriage to The Kills guitarist Jamie Hince collapsed last summer, and she recently kicked her toyboy lover, 29-year-old Count Nikolai von Bismarck, out of her house as a result of his debauched partying.

So is she licking her wounds quietly? Not a bit. Kate's just back from strutting the red carpet at Cannes, where she enjoyed the parties... just as she always has.

Daily Mail

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