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December 15 - 21 2010

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By Anita Singh IT WAS one of the most lavish weddings in the showbusiness world.

Liz Hurley, the model, and Arun Nayar, now 45, an Indian businessman, held ceremonies at Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire and a palace in India.

Elton John, the singer, gave the bride away, and photographs of the events were sold to a magazine for a six-figure sum.

However, the end of the couple’s threeyear marriage was somewhat more unceremoniously announced on Sunday – with a blunt message by Hurley, 45, on Twitter, the social networking website.

She was responding hours after being pictured embracing and kissing Shane Warne, 41, the former Australian cricketer. After a day of speculation, Hurley took to Twitter to announce the break-up.

“Not a great day. For the record, my husband Arun & I separated a few months ago. Our close family & friends were aware of this,” she said. There was no reference to Warne.

The unlikely pairing of the Estee Lauder “spokesmodel” and the womanising Australian spin bowler was disclosed by a Sunday newspaper. They were photographed last Thursday kissing in the foyer of the Sake No Hana restaurant in St James’s, central London, where they had

DAVIDHARTLEY/REXFEATURES

Liz Hurley, the model, and Shane Warne, the former Australian cricketer, at Glorious

Goodwood in July dined with Hugh Grant, the actor who is Hurley’s former boyfriend.

The next day, Hurley and Warne were spotted together gazing out of a hotel window. The newspaper said they spent two days together.

Hurley’s spokesman refused to comment on her friendship with Warne, but the pair have been conducting a very public flirtation via Twitter since they met at the Glorious Goodwood race meeting in July.

After they were pictured there together, Hurley sent Warne a message that could be viewed by her 38,000 followers. She wrote: “Hello new Australian friend, how nice to have met you & in such sexy surroundings. I like the papers saying we’re old friends.”

A month later, she Tweeted: “My spies tell me u just talked about me on a talk show – I hope you said deeply flattering things x”. In October, she invited him to her Cotswolds farm. Later, she referred to him as her “favourite Australian” and said: “I’ve always thought cricket the most aesthetically pleasing of all sports & cricketers the prettiest of all sportsmen.”

Warne was in London to conduct interviews for his Australian chat show, Warnie, which had seen its audience fall from 800,000 to 400,000 in a week.

There were calls last week for him to be recalled to the struggling Australia Ashes cricket team.

Royal touch-up Even these two need a little airbrushing

COPYRIGHT2010MARIOTESTINO

Picture perfect: Kate Middleton insisted on doing her own hair and make-up when she was photographed by Mario Testino with her fiancé

THEY are the perfect portraits of a couple in love, but even a Prince and future Princess can’t get by without a little help from a photographer’s airbrush, it seems.

Prince William and Kate Middleton’s official engagement portraits were digitally touched up by Mario Testino, the photographer, before they were released by St James’s Palace, insiders disclosed.

Testino, best known for his portraits of Diana, Princess of Wales, has never made any secret of his method of using a computer to iron out any imperfections, and the Prince and his fiancée were no exception.

“There was a minimal amount of airbrushing done,” said one insider. “The final portraits amount to a piece of art, rather like the official paintings that would have been done in previous generations, and so they were touched up a little to get them just right.”

The source insisted nothing had been done to alter the couple’s appearance, such as thickening the Prince’s hair, with changes “more likely to have been increasing the contrast between their clothes and the background colours”.

Despite never having posed for an official, studio-style portrait before, Miss Middleton, 28, insisted on choosing her own wardrobe and doing her own hair and make-up for the shoot at St James’s Palace on Nov 25, nine days after their engagement was announced.

Royal sources said Testino had “a couple” of assistants ready to style Miss Middleton, and that they had brought along a selection of designer clothes, but she insisted on wearing her own outfits, two of which were from the high-street chains Reiss and Whistles.

“It was a fun, relaxed, jovial atmosphere and took about two hours in total,” said a source.

“William has chosen Testino for several sessions going back to 1998, and his father, the Prince of Wales, has also chosen him for official pictures, along with the Duchess of Cornwall, so there was a lot of friendly banter.

“The poses the couple adopted in the final portraits just evolved as the session went on,” Testino said of the couple. “They are in their prime and brimming with happiness. I have never felt so much joy as when I see them together.”

Gordon Rayner

KENMCKAY

A triumphant Matt Cardle is congratulated by Dannii Minogue

By Michael Hogan HE WAS the bookies’ strong favourite but after laryngitis and a late surge from rival Rebecca Ferguson, it was touch and go there for a while.

Still, stubbly painter and decorator Matt Cardle, 27, is the newly crowned winner of The X Factor.

In an overblown, overlong final showdown — punctuated with incessant exhortations to download the performances and call the voting lines, not to mention countless advertisement breaks raking in a rumoured £500,000 per minute — Cardle was crowned the singing contest’s seventh winner, amid a frenzy of dry ice, fireworks, confetti and all the talk of “journeys”

that has become a reality TV cliché.

An audience of more than 20million was expected to be watching as the presenter Dermot O’Leary paused dramatically before calling Essex-based Cardle’s name.

He scoops a £1million contract with series svengali Simon Cowell’s SyCo record label and won’t have to touch a paintbrush for the rest of his life. Well, at least for a year.

After the exit of rapping teenager Cher Lloyd, Cardle was left facing tousle-haired boyband One Direction and Scouse songbird Rebecca for the karaoke crown.

The finalists’ opening songs were contrasting. Cardle and One Direction opted for feeble power-ballads but outside bet

Rebecca did a stunning disco diva version of the Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) that suddenly made her a serious contender.

At the halfway point of the two-hour show, the thirdplaced act was eliminated. Before Sunday night, that was widely expected to be Rebecca. But the boyband bowed out. With their every move eliciting hormonal screams, however, success in the pop market is assured.

It was head-to-head between the two solo acts – and the two female judges, Dannii Minogue and Cheryl Cole – as they performed the songs that would be their debut single should they win. Cardle’s was an earnest,

plodding cover of Many Of Horror by Scottish rockers Biffy Clyro – renamed as the more palatable When We Collide – Rebecca’s a soulful and anthemic take on Duffy’s Distant Dreamer.

Both were bland choices but Rebecca stole this round too. However, Cardle’s fan base carried him through. One Cardle fan in Colchester showed off a pizza topped with her idol’s portrait in mozzarella.

Cardle will now rushrelease Many Of Horror and the race for Christmas number one is on.

Cowell is sure to have a happy holiday, counting the millions he’s made and looking forward to the show’s US launch next year.