Latest news with #Candy
7NEWS
21 hours ago
- Entertainment
- 7NEWS
As Holly Valance splits from billionaire husband, a look into their property empire
Holly Valance, the Australian actress and singer who rose to fame on Neighbours, has reportedly split from her husband of 13 years, British billionaire property tycoon Nick Candy. In the 1990s, together with his brother Christian, Mr Candy began building a formidable property empire, which has since been punctuated by record-breaking developments like the £1.2 billion (AU$2.502 billion) One Hyde Park in London's ritzy Knightsbride. The couple, who share two daughters, met in 2009 and were engaged two years later. They married in a lavish AU$6 million ceremony in Beverly Hills in 2012. Naturally, the family have enjoyed quite the luxury lifestyle, with a property portfolio that spans some of the world's most exclusive locales. So if you've ever wondered where luxury property developers like to call home, we take a look at the notable properties they shared during their marriage. One Hyde Park Penthouse, London At the pinnacle of their property portfolio is the duplex penthouse at One Hyde Park, one of London's most prestigious addresses and 'one of the most exclusive and secure residential developments in the world,' according to the Sotheby's International listing. Spanning 18,000 square feet over the 10th and 11th floors, the ultra-luxury home features five bedrooms, an eight-metre-high reception room, a Japanese-themed kitchen, private spa, gym, cocktail bar, home cinema, and a wraparound terrace with uninterrupted views over Hyde Park. The principal suite alone covers 2,300 square feet, complete with dressing rooms and twin bathrooms featuring Jacuzzi-style pools. Despite its grandeur, the couple reportedly spent only about 20 days a year at the penthouse. In 2018, Candy sold the property for £160 million (AU$333.6 million) to offshore companies under his control so he could remortgage it with an £80 million (AU$166.8 million) loan. The penthouse was listed for £175 million (AU$364.9 million) in 2021 and remains on the market, making it one of London's most expensive apartments. Gordon House, London Another impressive residence is Gordon House in the coveted south-west borough of Chelsea, a Grade II-listed property built in 1809. Set on acres of grounds that form part of Chelsea's Royal Hospital, the property was acquired by Christian Candy in 2012 along with two neighbouring properties. He began renovations and then gifted the soon-to-be mansion to Nick Candy in 2014, who lived there with Ms Valance and their girls. The estate underwent extensive renovations to turn it into a luxury home, including the addition of a 14,000-square-foot subterranean lifestyle complex - essentially a basement featuring Europe's first private IMAX cinema, a wine cellar, and a leisure centre with swimming pool, sauna, cold plunge, dance studio, treatment rooms and even a bowling alley. The entire property now spans 40,000 square feet of internal space, including a two-storey guest house with a double-height courtyard and retractable glass ceiling. Cotswolds estate, Oxfordshire, UK In 2021, the couple purchased a £10 million (AU$20.85 million) Georgian heritage estate in the Cotswolds, described as a 'home sweet home' in the Oxfordshire countryside. The stately seven-bedroom property is a short drive from trendy private members club Soho Farmhouse, where Meghan Markle held her three-day hen's party before marrying Prince Harry in 2018. Set on nine acres, it features a Grade II-listed main house, guest cottages, pool, stables, tennis and squash courts, plus its very own chapel. Mr Candy told UK Mail Online in 2021 that he, Ms Valance and their children had been yearning to live in the countryside and were thrilled with the purchase. 'We have been looking for years to get something in the Cotswolds for the family, and finally, a year ago, we found a gorgeous family home in a wonderful village,' he said. 'We're very immersed in our quiet country life at weekends and adore the friendly and welcoming village.' The area is no stranger to wealth and celebrity status. High-profile personalities who have also bought in the area include Kate Moss, Lily Allen, Hugh Grant, and famously, David and Victoria Beckham. Beverly Hills mansion, Los Angeles The couple's Beverly Hills pad is the epitome of a glamorous, international lifestyle in luxury real estate. The modernist mansion in LA's Holmby Hills is known as The Reserve, designed to reflect 'tranquility and peace'. Beyond the swaying palms, you'll find ceilings that are 14-feet high, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking landscaped gardens and the 50-foot swimming pool. Other highlights include a lush master wing, wine room, elegant Art Deco Hollywood bar and plush 1920s French Regency-style cinema. There is also a pretty spectacular kid's play room. Of course, there is also a separate 10,000-square-foot, three-storey guest house, which hardly fits the definition considering it has five bedrooms, a gym, spa and carport. According to Mansion Global, many of these luxurious features were added by Mr Candy, who bought the estate from his brother in 2018. He paid US$28.5 million (AU$43.3 million), according to Zillow. Mr Candy listed the property for US$85 million (AU$129 million) in 2022. It is still on the market, after a US$10 million price cut in 2024, and a further US$10 million cut this June to US$65 million (AU$98.8 million). Ms Valance found fame on Neighbours as Felicity 'Flick' Scully before launching a career as a pop star after moving to the UK in 2002. Her debut album 'Footprints' produced three hits, including Kiss Kiss, which charted at number one in the UK. The actor, singer and model then turned her sights to Hollywood, appearing on TV series like Prison Break and Entourage, and even landing a role in the Liam Neeson film Taken.
Bangkok Post
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Bangkok Post
Rajamangala stadium to host NCT Dream in August
As the brainchild of SM Entertainment, NCT Dream stands out from other groups due to their dynamic, synchronised and cohesive performances, diverse music and experimental sounds. This iconic group will bring their impeccable performance to Bangkok at "The 2025 NCT Dream Tour in Bangkok". The concert is set to take place at Thailand's largest stadium, Rajamangala National Stadium, across two shows on Aug 16 and Aug 17. The concert will unfold under the concept of "Space-Time Travel", taking fans through a nine-year journey of dreams the members have envisioned and into the present full of remarkable achievements and forward into a new future that they will write with their fan club NCTzen. Over the years, NCT Dream has proven their extraordinary talent through chart-topping albums and globally acclaimed performances. All of their full-length albums have surpassed millions in sales, with hit tracks such as Hot Sauce, Glitch Mode, Candy, ISTJ, Smoothie and When I'm With You. Last year, the group released the album, Dream( )Scape, which conveyed the inner struggles and emotional conflict of youth. Following Dream( )Scape, the group launched the album Dreamscape which expressed excitement and freedom of an ideal world. These two albums were brought to life through the immersive world tour ""-- a performance that weaved music and storytelling flawlessly. The tour captivated audiences worldwide, spanning 37 shows in 25 cities across Asia, America, and Europe. This has led to even greater anticipation for the new album set to be released in July. Their fourth world tour " will kick off in Seoul from July 10–12 at Gocheok Sky Dome, Korea's largest indoor concert venue. Following Seoul, the tour will continue across major cities in Asia, including Bangkok, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Singapore, Taipei and Kuala Lumpur. Tickets cost 2,500, 2,900, 3,500, 3,900, 4,700, 5,200, 5,700, 6,000, 6,500, 6,800, 7,500 and 8,700 baht. Tickets can be purchased at and counter Service at all 7-Eleven stores nationwide. For more information, visit
Sky News AU
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sky News AU
MAGA fan Holly Valance seen without her wedding ring after splitting from husband of 13 years, property tycoon Nick Candy
Holly Valance has been seen without her wedding ring for the first time since splitting from her husband of 13 years, property tycoon Nick Candy. The Australian and British actress, 42, was photographed on Sunday at London's Heathrow Airport Terminal 5, where she cut a casual figure. Pictured obtained by The Sun show Valance sported baggy blue jeans and a black top and cardigan, which she paired with leopard print trainers. She carried with her a large black suitcase and a £2,500 (AUD $5,249.11) Christian Dior tote bag as she made her way to a waiting car. Close-ups show Valance's lavish wedding band clearly missing from her finger as she strolled to the pickup point. The sighting comes after Valance and Candy, 52, who is the treasurer of the Reform UK party, split in recent weeks, The Sun reported on Friday. A family friend told the publication their separation has been "very difficult" for the right-wing couple and their two daughters, aged 12 and 8. 'This has been a very difficult period for both Nick and Holly, and they are keeping things private out of respect for their family," the friend said. 'The joint parenting of their two amazing daughters remains their top priority. 'They've had to juggle a demanding lifestyle. Between family, public life, and Nick's intense work commitments, it's been a tough balance.' The pair played a pivotal role in the rise of Reform UK after Candy defected from the Conservative Party to the right-wing group last year. Valance said she too was a member of Reform UK and would vote for the party in the 2024 general election. "I support anybody that sticks to what they believe in and isn't a turncoat, and doesn't do a million flip-flops and U-turns," she said at the time. Speaking further about her political views, Valance said: "Everyone starts off as a leftie and then wakes up at some point after making money, working, trying to run a business, trying to buy a home. Then realises what crap ideas they all are." The model is friends with Nigel Farage and helped the politician return as leader of Reform UK, having raised £1.5 million (AUD $2,295,612.55) within days of his comeback. In December 2024, it was then announced Candy would become treasurer of Reform UK. Valance and Candy have made no attempts to hide their support for Mr Farage as well as US President Donald Trump. After staying at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in 2022, Valance last year became the "UK poster girl" for the 78-year-old's presidential campaign. She and her now ex-husband also hosted an extensive re-election campaign for the President out of their posh London townhouse. The actress began dating Candy, who co-founded the property development and interior design firm Candy & Candy with his brother, Christian, in the early 1990s, in 2010. The couple tied the knot in 2012 in a million-dollar ceremony in California before 300 high-profile guests, including music star Simon Cowell. In 2018, Holly and Nick were even among the high-profile guests at Princess Eugenie's royal wedding at Windsor Chapel. Valance rose to fame playing the role of Felicity Scully on the hit TV series Neighbours from 1999 to 2002. She went on to star in several other popular series and made her mark in music, releasing the album Footprints with her hit single Kiss Kiss.
Times
22-06-2025
- Health
- Times
‘Making the cake is an act of love for the sister I lost'
It began with a secret. Because that was what my sister had become. I was 14 when she died and she was 9. We were on a package holiday in Hammamet, Tunisia. She had gone to bed as normal, after a day of swimming in the pool, eating Nutella-filled pancakes and dancing to the Beatles with my dad at the hotel disco. She woke at 3am, spluttering and unable to breathe. She had contracted a rare airborne virus, we don't know where, that moved swiftly through her body and shut down her vital organs. She died in my father's arms while I stood in the corner of the hotel room, watching, incapable with fear. She was called Candy. She loved sweets, the colour pink and the film Dirty Dancing. I grew up and she did not. The experience had been so awful, of watching her die, of losing her, of the destructive repercussions for our family (addiction, affairs, bankruptcy, divorce), that I attempted to forget it all, to bury her memory along with her body. I did this so that I could go on, build a life. I did such a good job that by the time I reached my late thirties, with two young daughters of my own, a job, a husband, a mortgage, all the apparatus of a normal life, I had all but erased Candy. I had friends who did not know I'd ever had a sister, let alone that she had died. There were no photographs of her in our home. I could barely remember her, this little girl who I had grown up with in our mansion flat in Battersea, shared a bedroom with until I was 11. I certainly did not talk about Candy to my children, whose innocence I protected with zealous rigour. How could I explain it to them without terrifying them — that a child could die in the night with no apparent cause? To talk to them about Candy would be to introduce a grief into their happy, wholesome lives that I had been unable to accommodate in my own. Because I had not grieved. I had pretended nothing had happened and buried the pain. But it festered and refused to remain hidden. I began to feel jagged and disconnected, drinking too much, behaving erratically. I understood that in order to be a proper, functioning mother, wife, friend and daughter (my father died 15 years ago, 20 years after my sister) I needed to re-examine my childhood. I started long-overdue therapy and had treatments for trauma, including acupuncture and EMDR. I dug out old pictures of Candy, spoke to people who might remember her, looked at my diaries and wrote about my childhood, trying to locate her in my frozen memory, rebuilding her from fragments. I spent nearly a year doing this before I felt able to talk to my children about my sister. By this time the girls were four and six — sunny, busy, bold, wild, creative little people. I didn't want to talk to them about death, I didn't want them to think about Candy being afraid. I wanted to talk about life and joy and fun. I wanted to create memories for them based around the aunt they would never meet. So, as the anniversary of Candy's birthday approached in early July, I told the girls that we were going to make a cake. 'It's to celebrate my sister's birthday,' I said. 'She died when she was nine, very suddenly, very sadly. When she was alive she was a bit crazy and she really loved sweets — pink ones the most. So we are going to make a crazy pink birthday cake.' • Deepak Chopra: My advice for coping with grief My daughters looked solemn as I explained this, but their expressions shifted as I continued. 'First we have to go to the supermarket and you must choose any sweets you want, as many as you like, and we are going to use those to decorate the cake.' This was an opportunity like no other. Usually I was quite strict about sugar, but here was ultimate licence. They hurtled around the supermarket, laughing, excited, gathering packets of jelly beans, chocolate buttons, sprinkles, glancing up occasionally to make sure I wasn't about to change my mind, tell them to put it all back. The shopping basket was heavy with swag, but they kept filling it, Smarties, mini marshmallows, sparkly silver balls. Back at home I made the sponges — three tiers, this cake was going to be huge. I made pink icing, a whole mixing bowl of it, with extra pink food colouring for a vivid shade. I iced the cake for the girls — a precarious business, but really I was just slapping the stuff on. We were not looking for anything chic, we were looking for a cake of cartoonish lunacy. Then it was their turn. 'Be wild,' I said. They began chucking sweets at the thing, piling on the layers until the icing began to sag with the weight of its bounty, the whole edifice studded and sprinkled and starred and ridiculous. By this point my mother had arrived — her birthday is the week before Candy's, an event that, ever since her daughter's death, had been tinged with an inescapable sadness. But this cake was too ridiculous for anyone to feel sad. Once the cake could take no more, I cut slices. This was no easy task, what with all the draped fizzy strawberry laces, but somehow I managed it. We ate the cake and of course it was delicious. 'Candy would have loved this,' Mum said. And suddenly she was in the room with us, the memory of her at least, capering in her pink leotard, convinced she could manage another slice. We first made the Candy Cake in 2016 and we have made it every year since. When I first had the idea I didn't conceive of it as an annual event, but it has had its own momentum. There have been some alterations — I once tried different-coloured sponge tiers, which was not a huge success. There was the year we covered it with googly eyes, which made it quite surreal. Another year we went big on unicorns and rainbows. When my older daughter became a vegetarian we had to lose all the gelatine-based sweets. My mother is in a nursing home now, with limited mobility, so instead of eating the cake in the back garden in the sunshine, as we would normally have done, we take it to her and eat it together in her room, pictures of Candy all around us. And as my girls have grown and their personalities have developed, they have decided they want different things from the Candy Cake, so last year they made two. There was still the madcap plundering of the sweet aisle, still the pink icing, still the OTT aesthetic, just doubled. • When grief turns to madness — and medicine makes it worse The Candy Cake has become our self-created tradition. We can never eat it in one go, so we put it in a tin and lug it around with us, giving friends and family a piece when we visit, spreading the Candy madness, each mouthful conjuring her personality. My daughters look forward to it and plan for it. They cannot remember a time before the Candy Cake — it is baked into them now, and even though they know it is a sad thing, it is also a joyful time, a task we do together like decorating the tree at Christmas. It has facilitated conversations about Candy, brought her into our lives in a tangible way — taste, smell, memory. It makes me feel like I am honouring her, remembering her, cherishing her. Making the cake is an act of love for the sister I lost, and on a sunny summer's day, with the sound of giggles and tinkling sprinkles, the taste of pink icing on my tongue, I feel like I have found her again. This year, though, I tinkered with tradition. I turned 50 in May, and for my birthday party the girls and I made a classic Candy Cake: big and pink and wild. My friends gathered in the garden — friends made in secondary school, university, at work, all the things Candy never got to experience. This time the cake was all gone in one night, the icing scraped from the plate. And this time I made it for both of us, Candy and me. We live on behalf of the ones we have lost, so I feel like I have to embrace every day, every celebration 200 per cent, because I am doing it not just for me, but for her too. I grow old and she does not, but I bring her with me. The Consequences of Love by Gavanndra Hodge (Penguin £10.99 pp336). To order a copy go to Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members Share your own parenting experiences or send a question to one our experts by emailing parenting@
Wales Online
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Wales Online
Pop star Robbie Williams named as new Fifa Music Ambassador
Pop star Robbie Williams named as new Fifa Music Ambassador The singer, best known for songs such as Rock DJ, Angels and Candy, has been appointed to the role to "deepen fan connection" and "elevate" the emotion of the game by bringing music and football together on the world stage. Robbie Williams after Soccer Aid for UNICEF 2025 at Old Trafford, Manchester (Image: PA ) Pop star Robbie Williams has been named as the new Fifa Music Ambassador and has co-written the first official anthem of the international football governing body. The singer, best known for songs such as Rock DJ, Angels and Candy, has been appointed to the role to "deepen fan connection" and "elevate" the emotion of the game by bringing music and football together on the world stage. He has co-written a new song, Desire, which will be played before Fifa tournaments and matches worldwide to accompany players as they walk on to the pitch. The song will debut at the Club World Cup's opening match being held in Miami on Saturday, before being used in all upcoming tournaments including the 2026 World Cup. Williams said: "Music and football bring people together like nothing else - each with their own universal language of connection, emotion, spirit and community. "When those worlds come together, there's nothing like it - and I'm beyond honoured to be the Fifa Music Ambassador. Article continues below "Football and music have both been part of my life for as long as I can remember, so this means a lot to me on a personal level. Williams provided the theme song for the Fifa 2000 video game, It's Only Us, on the condition that his favourite team Port Vale were included in the game. The new anthem, which was co-written with Karl Brazil, Owen Parker and Erik Jan Grob, features the Italian singer Laura Pausini. The track will be accompanied by a new video which will be shown for the first time at Miami's Hard Rock Stadium. Williams added: "I've grown up watching the walk-outs, the anthems, the drama – so writing and recording the official Fifa anthem is a real privilege. "I wanted to create something that captures all of it - the passion, the nerves, the pride and the majesty of that feeling just before kick-off. "Football and music have always meant the world to me, and bringing them together on this kind of stage gives me goosebumps. "I know I'll get to perform this song at some of my favourite tournaments in the coming years, which fills me with excitement. It's a real honour that Laura Pausini accepted my invitation to feature on the song – she's an incredible artist with the perfect voice." Pausini, 51, rose to fame after winning the 1993 newcomer artists' section of the Sanremo Music Festival, one of the biggest and longest running song contests in Italy, with her song, La Solitudine. The singer, who has released Italian and Spanish albums, won a Grammy in 2006 for Best Latin Pop Album and was also nominated for an Oscar in 2020 for best original song with Io si/Seen. She added: "The song is amazing, really touching. It's a dream to be with him for the Fifa Club World Cup. Since I was a little girl growing up in Italy I remember the thrill and passion for football in my home country. "To be able to perform live with Robbie Williams in front of passionate football fans and to be heard by music fans around the world will be truly amazing." Article continues below It comes as Williams completes the UK leg of his tour which will then continue with concerts in Ireland, Spain and Italy. His new album Britpop is due to be released this autumn.
