I’ve interviewed 300 stars – these are their high ten cash errors

For the author Frank Cottrell-Boyce, it was turning down the prospect to write down a profitable Hollywood blockbuster. 

For the tennis star Tim Henman, it was shopping for Porsches. For the comic Lucy Porter, it was failing to avoid wasting into her pension. 

For pop star Kerry Katona, it was spending an excessive amount of on medication – and for the previous politician and bestselling writer Jeffrey Archer, it was sinking a cool £1million right into a West End musical.

Over the previous eight years, whereas writing the weekly Me and My Money column for the Mail, I’ve had the pleasure and the privilege of asking greater than 300 celebrities: What is the largest cash mistake you could have ever made?

In response, and I’ve discovered an enormous quantity from their solutions. Not least the truth that, irrespective of how gifted they’re of their day jobs as entertainers or entrepreneurs, athletes or actors, in relation to private finance choices, well-known individuals typically make precisely the identical type of errors as the remainder of us. 

They waste cash, spend frivolously, make investments badly, fail to avoid wasting for his or her retirement, purchase the unsuitable vehicles, make dangerous property choices and get into debt. The large distinction is, they normally have much more cash to lose – and, typically, individuals round them they can’t belief.

However, there are some errors that stood out. Here’s a rundown of the ten worst errors the celebrities featured in Me and My Money have ever made:

Mistake primary: ‘Being too kind and generous’ – John Caudwell

One of the commonest errors celebrities make is deciding to hearken to – and, in lots of circumstances, belief – their pals with their cash.

It is a method that not often works out properly, because the British billionaire philanthropist and Phones4U founder John Caudwell discovered to his detriment.

‘Being too kind and generous,’ was how he described his greatest cash mistake in 2019: ‘I’ve bailed pals out of hassle and ended up with that backfiring on me. In phrases of my wealth, I’ve misplaced comparatively small quantities, however actually I’ve misplaced properly over £1m to pals.’

He added:’They should not pals any extra.’

Ex-JLS boy band member Oritsé Williams and Kiss rock legend Gene Simmons additionally revealed they’ve misplaced 1000’s to pals and acquaintances. ‘I never saw that $400,000 again,’ stated Gene, in 2018.

Mistake quantity two: ‘Taking a friend’s recommendation on investments’ – Pat Cash

In 2019, the tennis star Pat Cash informed Me and My Money that after he acquired paid £180,000 for successful Wimbledon, he misplaced a good larger sum, due to a pal. ‘My friend created these phenomenal designs for high-speed boats that are put on the back of superyachts. But the company never managed to actually make any and I lost £200,000,’ he stated.

In the Nineteen Eighties, Hi-de-Hi! star Linda Regan was equally persuaded by her pal, fellow actress Liz Fraser, to speculate £5,000 in intercourse outlets. ‘Of course, the shares crashed and I lost all my money in a few months. That was probably the most stupid thing I ever did,’ she stated.

Other celebrities who’ve misplaced cash after taking suggestions on investments from pals embody fellow tennis participant Andrew Castle, the boxer Johnny Nelson, the comic Arthur Smith, the TV presenter and cleansing guru Aggie Mackenzie and even the cash skilled Alvin Hall.

Mistake quantity three: ‘Marrying three times’- Howard Blake

‘I’ve made three main cash errors in my life. My first spouse, my second spouse and my third spouse,” stated Howard Blake, the composer of The Snowman. ‘All of them cleaned me out.’

Anthea Turner, who has been divorced twice, additionally described it as ‘a very expensive process… However you look at it, you’re going to halve your wealth,’ she stated: ‘If you can avoid it, do.’

British ski legend Eddie the Eagle revealed many of the cash he had made out of his film had gone on his divorce. ‘It was horrendously expensive,’ he stated.

Mistake quantity 4: ‘Not making a multi-million-pound investment when I had the chance’ – Linda Plant

In the Nineteen Eighties, the entrepreneur John Hargreaves requested the multi-millionaire businesswoman and Apprentice interviewer Linda Plant whether or not she would make investments £250,000 in his new enterprise Matalan. ‘I had the money but I decided to invest it in my own business,’ stated Linda. ‘I had dinner with John last year and he reminded me that my £250,000 would now be worth £250million, if I had invested it back then in Matalan. So that was a pretty big mistake.’

Similarly, the tennis star John Lloyd needs he had invested at the least £50,000 or £100,000 in David Lloyd Leisure when his brother first supplied the prospect to take action. ‘I would have made millions,’ he stated.

Instead, he wrote a cheque for the comparatively ‘small amount’ of £20,000. ‘Some mornings I wake up and bang my head against the wall. If I had just put another £20,000 in, I would be on a beach in Barbados right now.’

Mistake quantity 5: ‘Making a stupid joke’ – Gerald Ratner

Gerald Ratner’s greatest mistake is so well-known that equally disastrous public gaffes are actually often called ‘doing a Ratner’. In 1991, when he was chief government of the jewelry chain Ratners, he joked in a speech on the Royal Albert Hall that a few of its merchandise have been ‘total crap’.

‘That speech cost me my salary, my job, my mental health, everything,’ he informed Me and My Money in 2021.

But he additionally claimed one of the best cash resolution he ever made was going again to the Royal Albert Hall in 2003 to present one other speech. ‘Ironically, that was the start of my lucrative speaking career,’ he stated.

Mistake quantity six: ‘Trusting property investment scammers’ – Ollie Phillips

The greatest cash mistake the previous England rugby union participant Ollie Phillips ever made, when he was in his mid-20s, was to belief fraudsters who have been working a property funding firm.

In 2007, £6.5million of mortgage money owed have been fraudulently taken out in his identify by the scammers. The fraud forged a cloud over Ollie’s life for greater than a decade and prevented him from accessing any credit score, he informed Me and My Money.

‘I was just one of the victims of what ended up being the largest ever housing scandal in the North East, involving 2,500 homes,’ he stated.

Thanks in no small half to Ollie, who was the lead witness for the prosecution, the fraudsters have been put in jail in October 2015 but it surely wasn’t till 2019 that each one the mortgage lenders eliminated the black marks from Ollie’s credit score file and accepted that he owed them nothing. ‘It was massively stressful,’ he stated.

Mistake quantity seven: ‘Investing in film tax schemes’ – Matthew Hoggard

Along with different high-profile cricketers, greater than a decade in the past, Ashes champion Matthew Hoggard invested in what he thought was a professional ‘film tax scheme’ to fund British movies. If a movie produced a loss, which regularly occurs, buyers might offset this loss in opposition to any tax owed on their different revenue.

‘We got encouraged by our financial adviser to do it, which we did in good faith, to the point where we borrowed money to invest,’ he stated in his 2021 Me and My Money interview. ‘Now, HMRC has turned around and said we need to pay back all the money we invested. I’d relatively not say how a lot cash I’ve been requested to repay however it’s a six-figure sum… It has been fairly a blow to my funds.’

The court docket later dominated that HMRC might acquire all of the tax owed.

Mistake quantity eight: ‘Buying something I didn’t perceive’ – Deborah Meaden

Dragon’s Den investor and multi-millionaire Deborah Meaden discovered an essential lesson when she allowed herself to be talked into shopping for a structured bond she didn’t perceive, earlier than the credit score crunch. ‘I got a flippant call in 2007 from someone sitting in an office saying they’d misplaced me half one million kilos, as if it was nothing. It taught me a lesson: If you don’t perceive it, don’t spend money on it. I additionally realised I care extra about my cash than anybody else.’

Similarly, racing driver Ben Collins, aka ‘The Stig’ from Top Gear, stated his worst mistake was ‘buying shares with no idea what I was doing’.

He misplaced a number of thousand kilos when the fund he’d put cash into went down by 97 per cent.

‘All you can do is laugh and learn. It is a painful memory,’ he informed Me and My Money final yr.

Mistake quantity 9: ‘Going rogue’ – Nick Leeson

Nick Leeson, the rogue dealer who introduced concerning the collapse of Barings Bank, now earns 1000’s of kilos an hour talking about his greatest cash mistake.

He informed Me and My Money: ‘As money mistakes go, I don’t suppose something can rival my reply. Between 1992 and 1995, I ran up £862million of losses from unauthorised buying and selling for Barings Bank – which in immediately’s cash is the equal of £1.7billion. It brought about the collapse of the financial institution.’

After accepting the jail sentence the choose gave him ‘without question’ and going by way of ‘a period of remorse’, he now earns £5,000 each time he makes a 45-minute speech about what occurred at Barings, its impression on him and threat tradition. ‘I have had to move on from it because, as much as I’d wish to, I can’t undo the previous.’

He added: ’It’s nonetheless embarrassing although. There’s completely little doubt about that.’

Mistake quantity ten: ‘Investing millions in property – just before a crash’ – Jimmy Osmond

In 2015, the previous baby pop star Jimmy Osmond informed Me and My Money his greatest mistake was shopping for property in Branson, Missouri, in 2006, simply earlier than the US property crash. ‘The market just died. I lost $2million,’ he stated.

Other celebrities who misplaced cash in property crashes embody the actress Joanna Scanlan, who purchased in Leicester within the late 80s after which noticed the worth of her £32,000 house fall by 62 per cent. After deciding to promote it for a lot lower than she had paid for it,

‘I made a deal with the mortgage company that I would carry on paying the mortgage,’ she stated. She ended up paying £50 every week for ten years, with no asset to point out for it. ‘If I had just held onto it, it would be worth at least £200,000 now.’

The radio host and former pop star the Reverend Richard Coles additionally didn’t make cash from property within the Nineteen Eighties, although he bought in leafy North London. ‘I bought a house in Islington for £160,000 at the peak of the market, sold it during the trough and broke even. Now, according to Rightmove, that house is worth about £1.5million,’ he stated.

TV presenter Steph McGovern stated her greatest cash mistake was shopping for a three-bed terrace in Middlesbrough, simply earlier than the 2008 monetary disaster. ‘It will take a long time for it to be worth what I paid for it – it is still down by about 15 per cent,’ she stated in 2016. ‘I should not have listened to everyone who kept saying to me: ‘You can’t go unsuitable with property’. I rushed into it. I didn’t want to purchase and, in hindsight, I want I had not.’

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