ALISON BOSHOFF: The BBC makes Coronation Concert stars work for free

With its spectacular Windsor Castle backdrop and drone light show, you can hardly accuse the Coronation Concert last Sunday of lacking ambition.

However the BBC was unexpectedly stingy to the stars who performed — insisting there would be no payment for their services.

Take That, Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Steve Winwood all performed for free.

Instead, the Beeb made ‘a contribution’ to expenses. However, celebs were told that Auntie would not pick up the tab for any air travel, meaning it actually cost some of those taking to the stage to cross the ocean to perform. Both Katy Perry and Lionel Richie are believed to have travelled to the UK by private jet.

Katy Perry, the fiancée of British actor Orlando Bloom, dazzled on the night in a gold gown by the British label Vivienne Westwood

Mark Owen, Howard Donald and Gary Barlow perform on stage during the Coronation Concert

Take That were among the acts which performed at the King’s Coronation concert for free (Pictured: Take That star Mark Owen)

BBC studios also provided a hair and make-up team to work on all artists. Those who wanted to bring their own — including Katy Perry — had to fund this themselves. Perry, the fiancee of British actor Orlando Bloom, dazzled on the night in a gold gown by the British label Vivienne Westwood. It was reported that her 50-strong entourage, including dancers, stylists and lighting specialists, took up five dressing rooms.

Her mother, Mary, also came with her, and the two of them got to spend the night at the castle as one of the perks of appearing.

Before the show Perry said: ‘I’m really excited . . . I might be posting a lot because I’m gonna be in a castle, for real. This is wild.’

She and Richie were also among the congregation in Westminster Abbey at the Coronation.

The concert was produced by the BBC’s commercial arm, BBC Studios, and was sold to 100 countries around the world.

Meanwhile, I hear the after-party at Windsor Castle was a muted affair. Neither the King nor Queen showed up, as they were filming a sketch with Perry and Richie for American Idol.

The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh were there, however, and the event broke up quietly after around an hour of champagne, canapes and polite conversation.

Robson Green killed my pop dream

Denise Welch, 64, said that Simon Cowell, then an executive at RCA, had a meeting with her about making music

Loose Woman Denise Welch, whose son Matty Healy (singer for The 1975) is dating pop star Taylor Swift, says her own efforts to make it in the music world were strangled at birth — by Robson Green.

Welch, 64, said that Simon Cowell, then an executive at RCA, had a meeting with her about making music after she sang on the hit TV drama Soldier Soldier.

She told the podcast My Wardrobe Malfunction: ‘Simon Cowell had said ‘We’re gonna get you on the Des O’Connor show, we’ll get you on everything’, then tumbleweed, nothing, nada.’

Years later, her friend and co-star Robson Green, whose successful pop career with another colleague Jerome Flynn was also masterminded by Cowell, told her he had advised the mogul he couldn’t take them all on. ‘Robson said the thought of having two people from the same show on the same label is just a cringe step too far,’ she said.

‘I think he just thought that I would completely overshadow them, which probably would have happened.’

The curiously timed visit to London last week of Meghan’s one-time bestie Jessica Mulroney excited plenty of comment. However, it appears that this was simply a personal trip and wasn’t undertaken for professional reasons.

There was talk that stylist Mulroney was in town to assist another pal, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, who was attending the Coronation with her husband, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau.

But a Canadian government source tells me: ‘Mrs Gregoire Trudeau did not receive professional styling services for this event.’

As for Mulroney’s close friendship with Meghan, it seems to have withered on the vine. She didn’t even wish the Duchess a happy 40th birthday on social media in August 2021. She shared an Instagram story as she left the UK which included the words: ‘You can’t hold grudges. It doesn’t matter how you get knocked down in life because that’s gonna happen. What matters is, you gotta get up.’

The Little Mermaid gets a kick out of you  

Old Etonian Jonah Hauer-King observes that it was ‘really weird’ playing a Disney prince in the forthcoming live-action remake of The Little Mermaid.

Hauer-King, son of London restaurateur Jeremy King, is starring as Prince Eric, opposite singer and actress Halle Bailey as Ariel, in the film, which opens here on May 26.They filmed the water scenes at Pinewood, and Hauer-King says he accidentally kicked Bailey black and blue during the shipwreck sequence. Bailey said: ‘Jonah’s so much taller than me, but I had to hold him up, and we kept laughing about these boots that he had to wear, because he kept sinking.

‘And so we asked Robert [Marshall, the director]: ‘You know, you don’t see the boots, right? So can he just take them off?’ Because he kept stepping on my toes.’

Hauer-King said: ‘I was kicking you. Just say it, I was kicking you. I was breaking your shins. It was really bad.’ But the director insisted that the boots stayed on.

Hauer-King, who read theology at Cambridge, will also be seen in a TV adaptation of The Tattooist Of Auschwitz, scheduled for release in 2024.

Jones took solace in the bottle and The Beatles… 

Legendary French singer Zouzou remembers how her former boyfriend Brian Jones ‘did drugs all day and all night long — and Scotch and Coke, from first thing in the morning to last thing at night’, in a new documentary about the Rolling Stone.

Stones guitarist Brian Jones pictured with drummer Charlie Watts

Arena: The Stones & Brian Jones will be broadcast on BBC2 on Monday and aims to bring Jones and his role as the founder of the band back into the spotlight.

The guitarist was discovered drowned in his swimming pool in July 1969, less than a month after the band fired him because of his drug habit.

Zouzou, who had a two-year, on-off relationship with Jones, recalls that he hated the musical direction the band went in, thanks to the songs written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

‘He hated Satisfaction,’ she tells documentary maker Nick Broomfield. ‘He could not stand the music they were doing.

‘He made a group to do some blues. Rock and roll, he said, it is vulgar, it is awful, it is nothing.’

She said Jones listened to other people’s music all day long . . . ‘mostly the Beatles’.

Ray Donovan may have been cancelled as a series three years ago, but star Liev Schreiber says a second TV movie spin-off is in the works — and he’d be more than happy to return to his role as the tough-guy celebrity fixer.

‘There’s absolutely no reason why I wouldn’t want to play him again,’ says Schreiber, who appeared as the title character for seven series. The American show, which aired in the UK on Sky Atlantic, also starred Elliott Gould and Ian McShane.

Narrow escape for Kate as Mrs Bean stays away 

Rowan Atkinson has been a friend of King Charles for decades, so it was rather a surprise that he wasn’t among the 2,000 guests at the Coronation.

The Windsors: Louise Ford as Kate and Hugh Skinner as Wills

But perhaps it was for the best . . . as Atkinson’s girlfriend is Louise Ford, most famous for portraying the Princess of Wales in Channel 4’s comedy The Windsors.

Ford, 42, was on screen just a few days before the ceremony playing Kate in a Coronation Special episode, in which she grappled with issues including how to deal with Meghan (‘Do I hug her or challenge her to a bare-knuckle fist fight?’). The actress said: ‘I don’t think I could meet Kate, because I’d be too embarrassed!’

Ford (pictured as Kate) and Atkinson have a daughter Isla, five, whom her father refers to as Baby Bean.

She’s set to continue appearing as the Princess of Wales in the next series of the show, which has been running since 2016.

‘I think it’s a fair indication of how much people love working on it that, even though everyone’s very busy, people drop things and make time.’

Her Kate is ‘dependable, well-meaning and kind’ — and surrounded by idiots, like husband William, who is launching his ‘Ite and Abite’ (Out and About) scheme and struggling with hostilities from brother Harry, who is seen tending to chickens in his garden in California, where there is a statue of Oprah.

Ed Sheeran is having a pretty good week: the singer was cleared of allegations that he had ripped off Marvin Gaye’s hit Let’s Get It On in a U.S. court, and his new album Subtract is cruising easily to the top slot. His good friend Ellie Goulding appears to be experiencing the flip side of fame, however.

The singer-songwriter’s latest album, Higher Than Heaven, entered the charts at No 1, but after sliding to No 84 the next week has now left the Top 100 altogether.

ALISON BOSHOFF: The BBC makes Coronation Concert stars work for free
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