EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Still mad in regards to the boy, Bridget Jones star Renee Zellweger mourns Mr Darcy

Renee Zellweger has admitted that the plot of Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy made her cry on set.

The forthcoming film is set after the death of Bridget’s husband, the human rights lawyer Mark Darcy, played by Colin Firth, who is seen during a flashback scene.

‘I love this person that Colin plays when we get together again. And I was heartbroken,’ says Renee, 55.

‘It was such a peculiar thing to be heartbroken that a fictional character is gone from your life. And of course Colin, he’s an integral part of that experience, and to not share it with him, I won’t lie, I shed some tears.’

Shirley is new drama queen

King Charles is being succeeded as the new president of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama not by his son and heir, Prince William, but by Dame Shirley Bassey.

The King is stepping down because he is no longer Prince of Wales now that title has been inherited by William, 42.

‘I am thrilled and honoured,’ says the singer, 87, whose hits include Diamonds Are Forever and Big Spender. 

‘As president, it will give me the greatest pleasure to continue to champion the vital importance of the college to Wales and to the arts everywhere in the world.’

William, I am assured, is still on course to inherit the Crown.

Ball’s brush with botox

West End star Michael Ball, 62, reveals that he took another singer’s advice to try Botox, but was mortified by the results.

‘About 15 years ago a very well-known soprano, who I won’t mention, said: ‘You should go to this chap who does Botox,’ ‘ he tells the Rosebud podcast. ‘I went in, saw this bloke, and came out looking like a Klingon.

‘My eyes had [been] lifted, it dropped in the middle and I didn’t go out for six months.

‘I just had this manic ‘I am a serial killer stare’ for the whole time – so never again.’

Home raid still haunts F1 heiress Tamara

The men who conspired to burgle her home in Kensington, west London, in a £25 million heist in 2019 were jailed, but Tamara Ecclestone says her family has been left feeling insecure.

‘I feel like I have to pretend that I feel safe in London,’ the Formula 1 heiress (pictured), 40, tells me at the VIP preview of Hyde Park Winter Wonderland in the capital. ‘It’s a conscious decision I’ve made, but I really don’t [feel safe].

‘We’ve put all the [security] measures in place, which helps, because, sadly, worrying all the time is stressful and is no way to live.’

Great British Bake Off Judge set for white Christmas

The Great British Bake Off judge Dame Prue Leith won’t be putting her feet up this Christmas. 

‘I’m taking a family party of 17 skiing to Val d’Isere – all my children and grandchildren,’ she tells me at The Oldie Of The Year Awards at the National Liberal Club, off Whitehall. ‘It will be great.’ 

Dame Prue, who turns 85 in February, adds: ‘All I want for Christmas is a long and happy life.’

‘Woke women’ have changed the flirting game for men, claims Ulrika

Flirtation has become a minefield for men, admits Ulrika Jonsson, who has different attitudes from many younger ‘woke’ women. 

‘If someone wolf-whistled me, I’d be chuffed as anything,’ says the 57-year-old TV personality. 

‘Many young women would go: ‘Don’t do that.’ I think that’s a very difficult line.

Equally, if I’m on a date and you like them, if somebody’s a bit touchy-feely, I liked that. But for somebody else that might be too much.’