Duchess of Cambridge is ‘in talks with the BBC’ after Prince Harry signs up to appear on Oprah

With Prince Harry signed up to appear in a series for Meghan’s chum Oprah Winfrey at Apple TV+, is the Duchess of Cambridge lining up her own secret screen project?

For I hear that Kate held private talks with BBC director-general Tony Hall at Broadcasting House in London on Thursday.

‘It wouldn’t be appropriate to discuss the content of the meeting,’ his spokesman tells me.

Kensington Palace points out that the Duchess met Lord Hall in her capacity as patron of the Royal Foundation, so any project would be for charity.

(Very) modern manners

When choosing a baby’s name, parents should think hard about the initials, warns David Gandy.

Britain’s highest-paid male model has a one-year-old daughter, Matilda, with his barrister girlfriend Stephanie Mendoros.

‘We wanted to name her Ophelia Matilda Gandy but then her initials would have been OMG,’ Gandy tells me at a Kensington party to celebrate the 50th anniversary of TAG Heuer’s Monaco watch. 

‘So we had to turn it around. Now it’s Matilda Ophelia Gandy, and I call her Mog.’

Ellie sets Jonah’s World On Fire… 

As World War II Army Officer Harry Chase in the BBC’s hit drama World On Fire, Jonah Hauer-King is torn between two beautiful women.

Off screen, he has only one leading lady.

I can reveal that Eton-educated Jonah, 24, is courting film producer Ellie Fenn, 29.

Jonah is the son of Jeremy King, who co-owns London restaurants including The Wolseley and Colbert.

Olympic gold medallist Samantha Quek has struck a blow for old-fashioned chivalry. 

The 31-year-old hockey player and former I’m A Celebrity star, says: ‘For the avoidance of doubt — if you open a door for me, if you pull my chair out, if you lend me an umbrella when it’s raining or your coat when it’s cold, if you see me upset and put your arm around me — I won’t think you’re being sexist, I’ll think your mum raised you right.’

The smart set’s talking about… Lady Liza’s ‘erotica’ etchings 

Since she posed nude for the society snapper Patrick Lichfield aged 20, Lady Liza Campbell has known how to draw attention.

Now 60, she has chosen an alluring title for her latest exhibition of artworks, ‘Erotica Requires A Feather’. 

Among those attracted to a private view at Fitzrovia’s Rebecca Hossack gallery was actor Bill Nighy with Liza.

Lady Liza was advised by her father, the late 6th Earl of Cawdor, to trade on her looks.

‘He said my face was my fortune, which is such terrible advice,’ she tells me.

‘For one thing, looks don’t last. For another, it’s incredibly sexist.

‘But luckily I always knew my face wasn’t my fortune and that I had a brain.’

Sir Elton John is still standing after a remarkable career of more than 40 years — and now you can set your watch by him.

JCB billionaire Lord Bamford’s son George has created 40 timepieces in collaboration with the super-star.

Priced at £450, the Bamford London watch aims to capture the ‘character and history’ of Sir Elton, with the colours harking back to the famous blue Dodgers outfit he wore when he performed at the baseball team’s stadium in Los Angeles in 1975.

Gym’s a tonic for busy Boris

Missing those amusing photographs of Boris Johnson out jogging in motley outfits?

I hear the PM has instead been sneaking out of Downing Street for early morning gym visits.

‘Boris has asked those in charge of his election diary to make sure time is made for him to go to the gym,’ a source tells me.

‘He’s told them to lock in at least two gym visits a week.

‘Some of his best ideas come when he’s exercising.’

Stepmother cuts Earl out of will and leaves £33m fortune to decorator pals 

When the earl married an American heiress in ITV’s hit drama Downton Abbey, it helped secure the future of his family’s stately home.

In the real-life case of Earl Bathurst, an Anglo-American union has left his estate bitterly divided.

For I can reveal that Lord Bathurst has not been left a penny by his late American stepmother, Gloria, Dowager Countess Bathurst.

Instead, she bequeathed almost her entire fortune of more than £33 million to a pair of interior decorators.

‘The Countess’s will has left the whole estate in deep shock,’ a source tells me. ‘While it was known that Gloria had her differences with her stepson, no one thought she would cut him out of her legacy entirely.’

Gloria lived at Cirencester Park, which has a 15,000-acre Gloucestershire estate and a polo club where Princes William and Harry have often played, until her husband’s death in 2011.

Newly released probate documents disclose that the Countess, who died last Christmas aged 90, decreed in her will that the vast bulk of her of £33.2million estate should be shared equally between Grant White, an interior designer based in Fulham, and New Yorker Geoffrey Bradfield.

The estate is understood to include an entire village.

Bradfield hosted a party for Gloria and her husband in Manhattan in 1998, where topiary Labradors were displayed in honour of the Earl and Countess.

The Countess had renounced her U.S. citizenship in 2008 to escape paying American inheritance tax.

Lord Bathurst had accused his stepmother of a ‘lack of standards’. Speaking to me the week after her death, Allen Bathurst said: ‘It was no secret that my stepmother, Gloria, and I did not see eye to eye, despite a number of attempted reconciliations being made, all of which were thrown back in our faces.’

He inherited the house and title on the death of his father. However, Gloria brought a High Court action against him in 2017, as she unsuccessfully sought the ‘use and enjoyment’ of family portraiture and antiques worth an estimated £13million.

He claimed that Gloria traded on her aristocratic status after she became his father Henry’s second wife in 1978.

‘Having married into the family, she was happy to use the family name,’ Allen told me. ‘It was just disappointing that she could not follow in the manners, standards and loyalty of the family of the past.’

After the death of her eccentric husband, who was known as ‘Barmy Bathurst’, Gloria declined to renew the lease on Cirencester Park Polo Club, before eventually relenting.

Her husband had branded Prince William ‘some young yob in a beat-up car’ after his Land Rover was overtaken on an estate road by the Prince’s VW Golf.

And, in 2013, Gloria closed Cirencester Hospital car park, situated on land she owned, causing her stepson -president of the Cirencester Hospital League of Friends -acute embarrassment. 

Zac wins a seat on the (Privy) Council 

Even if Zac Goldsmith fails to cling on to his highly marginal Richmond Park seat — with a majority of just 45 it’s the Lib Dems’ No. 1 target — he will leave Parliament with a bauble.

On Wednesday, the eco-campaigning Tory was sworn in by the Queen as a member of the Privy Council, which advises the monarch. 

It means he will have ‘the Right Honourable’ before his name, whatever the election result.

Zac’s father James Goldsmith was awarded a knighthood but never made a Privy Counsellor. 

A friend tells me: ‘Zac’s very honoured.’

Being married for almost 20 years to philandering Bake Off judge Paul Hollywood seems to have put his ex-wife, Alex, off men altogether.

Asked about finding love again, she protests: ‘It’s usually women who get asked that, as if we’re some sort of property in the lost and found department. I’m not “property” waiting for somebody to pick me up. I don’t even want to think about it.’ 

Alex, 55, who filed for divorce earlier this year on the grounds of adultery, adds: ‘If something was to happen, I’d go with it — but I’m not planning to go out and look.’