Benidorm heartthrob looks unrecognisable after 'miserable' divorce
Almost 20 years on from his debut on one of Britain's most-loved sitcoms, Jake Canuso now looks very different from his days as Benidorm 's barman Matteo Castellanos.
The star became a household name in the sun-soaked comedy when it launched on screens in 2007 before being brutally axed in 2018. Jake started out in showbiz as a professional dancer, working with the likes of Elton John and the Spice Girls before turning his hand to acting.
Now, aged 55, seven years after appearing on screens, he's embracing his natural grey locks and stubble—worlds away from his days as clean-shaven Matteo, known for his jet-black slick-backed hair. Jake, a Swiss-British actor, was the longest-running cast member, starring for the comedy's entire run.
Following the collapse of the show, he tried out pantomime, and in 2022, he appeared as Abanazar in Aladdin, which was staged at the Rhyl Pavilion Theatre. Jake also joined several other cast members in creator Derren Litten 's Benidorm Live stage show, which toured the UK from September 2018 until April 2019 for 250 shows.
After the end of his run with Benidorm, Jake collaborated once more with Derren on his BBC One sitcom Scarborough, playing the role of Tony Peroni in the 2019 series. However it has since transpired that the pair were secretly married. And since their separation in 2023, an alleged Benidorm reboot is now reportedly off the cards after their relationship breakdown.
Derren said on X last year: "I don't really talk about my personal life here but the reason I've been a bit scarce on the socials is for the last 18 months I've been going through a pretty miserable divorce. So I'm obviously poor now. And you thought we couldn't have more in common then we already do?!"
A source told The Sun: "Matteo is Benidorm, he's the character that everyone wants to see. He's been part of the Solana since the beginning so for him not to feature in any future reboot, well it just would not be the same without him. Jake created one of the show's most loved characters in Matteo but with everything that's happened between him and Derren, it's not looking good.'
Another insider said: "Conversations have been had. The only way Jake will return is if ITV make him a huge offer, one that he could not possibly turn down. But obviously Derren is making negotiations difficult. He is the writer and creator and believes that he should make all the decisions - the fans would want to see Matteo, which ITV get. It's all become one big headache."
A spokesperson for Jake told The Sun they were unaware of any planned return for Benidorm. But he hasn't entirely waved goodbye to his alter-ego, as Jake has been offering paid personalised messages as Mateo via the video service Memmo.
Promising 'Mateo from Benidorm at your services' on the platform, the star's videos start at £56 and are typically delivered within 24 hours. He also keeps his fans up to date on his Instagram account, sharing photos of gym selfies.
In one image, where he showcased his grey hair and stubble for the first time, he left his 50k followers a cryptic message. He wrote: "I started to imagine my life like a new book with empty pages. Waiting to be written by myself. But it takes courage to open that new book, see the first page empty, take a pen in your hand and fearlessly let the pen write the first few words.
"But before you know the page fills up and you turn to the next page not knowing what you will find but you know it is your book and your pen. It is your life, that you will write."
In another post, he shared an image of him getting dressed in a silk shirt for a costume fitting. One fan replied : "Just gorgeous" while another wrote: "very handsome".
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Spectator
an hour ago
- Spectator
‘Boldness was his friend in betting and in life': A tribute to the great Barry Hills
I have always enjoyed Royal Windsor Racecourse, as it styles itself. It may not have quite so many dignitaries popping in from the castle up the road as Royal Ascot does, but it has long been famed for its friendliness and approachability. Jockeys moving from the weighing room to join their mounts under the parade ring trees pick their way between picnics and the Pimm's and Caribbean cocktail outlets, readily pausing for autographs. In times long past, a former clerk of the course once responded to jockeys complaining about the cold autumn changing room by bringing in a bottle of whisky from the Stewards' Room. Watching young Olivia Tubb win the opening apprentice handicap for Johnny Portman with a tidy ride on Prima Diva reminded me of Dean McKeown's experience at a similar stage of his career. Having led all the way to win on the 33-1 shot Miss Merlin, he told me he was mystified to be called in by the Windsor stewards. The well-backed horse he had beaten into second was ridden by one Lester Piggott, who had persuaded the authorities that Miss Merlin had 'intimidated his horse', and Lester was awarded the race. Afterwards the public idol turned to Mc-Keown and told him: 'You learned something today, son. Bullshit beats brains.' He could have had a political career. Of Saturday's winners, both Billy Loughnane on George Boughey's Amorim and Cieren Fallon on William Haggas's Tenability were confident they had been on decent horses with more to come, but perhaps the most enjoyed win of the afternoon was Rossa Ryan's success on Wisper, trained by the ever-courteous Alan King. Hearing after the race that Wisper had also won the best-turned-out prize, Alan declared: 'Thank God they didn't announce that before the race. I always fear it is the kiss of death.' The cheerful Wisper syndicate is led by former Lambourn trainer Michael Blanshard, and before his retirement you could always rely on Michael having a spate of winners in July. The former Lambourn trainer whose name dominated racing's weekend, however, was Barry Hills, who has died at 88. Back in 2010, interrupted by his ongoing battle with cancer, I managed to persuade him to let me write his biography, Frankincense and More, named after his extraordinary betting coup on the 1968 Lincoln winner. Backing it for weeks, he won enough to buy Lester Piggott's father's Lambourn stable and set out on a training career that netted him 3,181 British winners. Starting as a head lad's son with no silver spoon, Barry was not just a superb trainer of racehorses, with a dozen Classic winners and a Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe with Rheingold to his credit, he was the epitome of the self-made man and founder of a much-respected racing dynasty. Of his five sons, John, who sadly died of cancer in 2014, and Charlie have both been highly successful trainers. George is in the horse insurance business and twins Richard and Michael each rode approaching 2,000 winners as leading jockeys. One of Barry's achievements, alongside his great friend Robert Sangster, was bringing the supreme US rider Steve Cauthen to Britain. Barry and his wife, Penny, treated the American superstar like family, but even Cauthen occasionally had to suffer Barry's brusquer side, which earned him the nickname Mr Grumpy. Cauthen told me once of the day Penny asked him to take over her usual role of driving them to Nottingham. Normally she would drive with him alongside her, and Barry in the back reading the Sporting Life and smoking a cigar. 'I had very little experience of smaller English roads,' Steve told me. 'I kept pulling out to get by trucks and swerving back in again. I didn't quite know how to kick the Merc in the belly. Penny looked nervously behind them but there wasn't a word from Barry. The comment was saved for when we got to the track. B. Hills climbed out and said: 'I hope you give my horses a better fucking ride than you've just given me.'' Most of those who've asked me over the years about Barry have wanted to know about his ability to get one over the bookmakers. Basically, he told me, he kept things simple. 'I rarely back other people's horses. Sometimes I don't feel I know enough about my own… You can't win backing bad horses, because most bad horses have a problem – they bleed or they won't do it or they need blinkers. You're better off backing one good horse against other good horses than a bad one against other bad horses.' And it was better to back in the second half of the season when there was more form in the book. Finally: 'Never bet odds-on. Never back each-way. And don't be frightened of a long price – the longer the odds, the more you should have on.' Boldness was his friend in betting and in life.
Spectator
an hour ago
- Spectator
Who's deceiving whom?: The Art of the Lie, by Laura Shepherd-Robinson, reviewed
In this age of lies and delusions, the trickster may seem to be a peculiarly modern creature, but he or she is almost as old as literature itself. Long before phishing or fake news, stories about cunning foxes, Loki, Anansi the Spider-Man and Odysseus brought delight; Puck, Tom Ripley and Sarah Waters's fingersmith Sue Trinder are some of their descendants. Encountering such a figure is always a joy, and in Laura Shepherd-Robinson's latest novel, The Art of a Lie, there are two. Hannah Cole is a shopkeeper in 18th-century London, struggling to keep her confectionary business open. Her husband Jonas has been murdered, and we soon learn that not only is the celebrated author and magistrate Henry Fielding investigating Mr Cole's death but that Hannah is, in fact, his killer. What may save her fortunes, and possibly her neck, is William Devereux, a friend of her late husband. He suggests that she try her luck at making a new delicacy for the gentry: 'iced cream'. And he is enlisted by Hannah to try to misdirect Fielding as to her husband's killer. Only William, too, is not what he seems. A serial confidence trickster, he seduces rich widows and leaves them broken-hearted and empty-pursed. The stage is set for a novel of suspense whose artfulness echoes the elegance, imagination, wit and ruthlessness that Georgian craftsmen (and women) excelled in. Each of Shepherd-Robinson's previous novels, beginning with Blood & Sugar in 2019, has plumbed the social and criminal depths of an era which many regard as the apogee of British life. She interweaves its beauties and its villainies (the slave trade, prostitution, gambling) in a way that pricks the conscience even as it entertains. The Art of a Lie is about an era in which men and women of every class practised to deceive each other for pecuniary gain, either through marriage or manipulation – something that is less remote from us than we like to think. The novel is narrated by Hannah and William in turn, each deftly depicted and neither entirely reliable. Hannah has no weapon but her little pastry knife, concealed in her bodice, her wits, her looks and the assumption that a woman must be weak and helpless. She has killed her treacherous husband in self-defence, and is clever enough to make it look like a robbery: but will Fielding's strange mix of reforming zeal, honesty and insight prove her undoing? William seems to be the perfect gentleman of means, and he does indeed help Hannah turn her business around with a recipe for peach ice cream before bedazzling her with his supposed fortune. His true character is shockingly different. 'Did you ever see a bigger cunt than Henry Fielding?' is how he introduces himself to us; and believing the novelist and tenacious inquisitor to be his only problem is the first of many mistakes. With a crew of criminals to back up his deceptions, he also has his own demons, in the shape of a violent crook to whom he owes a lot of money. But he is confident that his four-part technique with widows (which he calls the Mirror, the Dance, the Rope and the Drop) will carry him through to another success. This is a pleasingly sophisticated and twisty novel. Hannah is intelligent, brave and sharply observant about human psychology, but insufficiently wary about what she is being led to believe. William's insouciant voice, misogyny, lies and self-delusion are skewered in a way that 21st-century readers may find sadly contemporary, even as you also feel his charm. 'Contrary to what you might think, I don't hate women. I couldn't do this job if I did,' he says. He claims he's not 'the worst kind of villain' – because he refrains from taking everything, leaving his victims 'with their pride intact and their fortunes only somewhat diminished'. For guiding widows out of grieving for their husbands and lost youth into a new world, he argues that he deserves payment – and only one furious, broken former conquest from Bath is hot on his trail, seeking vengeance. He has more feelings than he likes to admit, just as Hannah has more sense and resilience. Falling genuinely in love with your victim is fatal for the trickster, but who will be the less deceived? Unusually, The Art of a Lie is also a celebration of the early days of trade, with the dawn of businesses– such as Fortnum & Mason, Floris and Berry Bros – which still carry lustre to this day. The author tells us in an afterword that there were a surprising number of businesses owned by women in this period, and Hannah stands for those who did not need rescuing by a Mr Darcy or, for that matter, Fielding's Tom Jones. She is an intriguing character, and I hope we meet her again. Too much literary fiction falls into a softened version of the past, but the best historical crime novels are sharply corrective of this. Like C.J. Sansom, Abir Mukherjee, Tim Pears and S.J. Parris, Laura Shepherd-Robinson has taken a moral microscope to her chosen period and shown us the truth about its lies – and our own.
Scottish Sun
2 hours ago
- Scottish Sun
Stormtrooper helmet from original Star Wars film set to fetch eye-watering fee at prop auction
Scroll to find out what other items are up for grabs BIDDING WARS Stormtrooper helmet from original Star Wars film set to fetch eye-watering fee at prop auction A STORMTROOPER helmet from the first Star Wars film could fetch £220,000 at auction. The costume piece is said to appear in a key scene in the 1977 classic involving Princess Leia and Darth Vader. 2 A Stormtrooper helmet from the first Star Wars film could fetch £220,000 at auction, pictured a similar helmet from the 1977 classic Credit: PA:Press Association An Obi-Wan Kenobi lightsaber used by Ewan McGregor, a C-3PO hand prop and six prototype Yoda toy heads are other lots at the Star Wars memorabilia sale in San Diego, US, on July 27. The news comes after The Sun revealed a major Star Wars fan sold his lifelong collection of toys for £2.1million. Jeff Jacob spent 33 years amassing virtually every figure, spaceship, vehicle and set from the sci-fi franchise. His collection of more than 800 mint-condition toys — many in their original boxes — sparked an international bidding war in a two-part auction. One rare Darth Vader figure with a double telescopic lightsaber went for almost £100,000, while numerous others sold for in excess of £10,000 each. Other top sellers were a 1978 Jawa figure with its original vinyl cape, which fetched £13,600, and a Jabba the Hutt playset which attracted a winning bid of £29,200. Jeff, from Denver, Colorado, said: 'When I started collecting, I wanted all the characters. "Once I got every variant I could possibly think of, I went on to the package stuff.' Hake's Auctions, Pennsylvania, which sold the toys, said: 'Jeff was able to get the best of the best.' Construction worker Jeff, who had kept the collection in glass cases around his home, said he will spend the proceeds on building himself a new house. Batman and Star Wars memrobilia part of film and TV auction set to fetch £10 million
