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Naughty party photos, a business thousands in debt and scurrilous rumours about his sexuality: The truth behind that wild gossip, by Kate Middleton's brother
James Middleton has spoken out to dismiss Made in Chelsea rumours
He has insisted his business is not in trouble despite £16,000 debts
By Guy Adams
For a member of a tight-lipped family which, since being thrust into the public eye, has followed that age-old royal maxim ‘never complain, never explain’, James Middleton was in a surprisingly forthright mood this week.
The Duchess of Cambridge’s younger brother, who shares a flat with his other sister, Pippa, was quick to deny a report claiming he’s ‘considering’ a role in Made In Chelsea, the faux-reality TV show about posh kids in his West London neighbourhood.
‘That’s the first I’ve heard of it, and I’ve no idea where it’s come from,’ he told me, describing the whole thing as ‘just a typical, speculated rumour’ of the sort his family has sadly become ‘so used to’.
It was not the only misleading piece of tittle-tattle the 25-year-old ‘baby’ of the Middleton clan, an entrepreneur with two cake-making companies to his name, was anxious to rebut.
Days earlier, reports had suggested that his latest start-up company, which sells personalised cakes via the internet, has hit choppy financial waters, racking up five-figure losses during its first year of trading.
Papers filed at Companies House revealed that Nice Group London Limited owed creditors £32,575, and had assets of just £15,717 at the end of its last accounting period. That left it £16,858 in debt.
Although the figures may seem ugly, James is adamant that his company — which allows customers’ photos to be reproduced in icing on their cakes — is far from failing.
Instead, he argued, the numbers were in line with expectations. ‘Most start-up companies do incur losses to get the ball rolling,’ he insisted, with some justification.
For Nice Group, to whose Berkshire HQ James commutes from his flat in Chelsea, the £17,000 deficit included the one-off cost of setting up a bakery at his family’s business compound near Reading, from where the Middletons run their thriving Party Pieces empire.
‘It’s not a game to make money as quickly as possible,’ James said of his business plan. ‘It’s about creating a sustainable business.’
 James Middleton, who lives with his sister Pippa, denied rumours he is due to feature in Made in Chelsea
Take, for example, the scorn that greeted last year’s news that Nice Group was selling a line of ‘adult’ products including a ‘Wonderful Wife’ cake adorned with the slogan ‘scrummy boobies that make my hands happy’. Also in the ‘naughty’ range was a ‘Stud Muffin’ design, showing an image of a man alongside the words ‘a willy that wriggles and gives me the giggles’.
To any other firm, the vulgar cakes might have provided a lucrative side-line. To James Middleton, they were a PR disaster, prompting questions about what the Royal Family might make of them. All ‘adult’ cakes have since disappeared from Nice’s website.
Take also the kerfuffle in 2008, when James was hired to supply special cakes to a birthday party held by Hello! magazine. One of them carried an image of the late Princess Diana. At Buckingham Palace, they reportedly ‘shuddered’.
The Duchess of Cambridge's younger brother James insisted £16,000 of debt is normal for start up businesses
In his private endeavours, James has also endured brickbats. After his 21st birthday party at the Raffles nightclub in Chelsea in 2008, he was photographed by an Australian magazine, worse for wear and peeing against a set of railings. Later that year, a series of pictures popped up online, showing Middleton well refreshed and in various states of undress at a series of seemingly debauched house parties.
One of the images appeared to show him using a hairdryer on his pubic hair. Another saw him sitting naked, by a fireplace, holding a bottle of lager. In a third photograph, he bared a waxed chest and well-toned upper body, with one hand covering his modesty.
Perhaps the most memorable shot showed Middleton and three male companions, with their trousers and underpants round their ankles, standing with their backs to camera on a leafy rural road. A nearby road sign proclaimed: ‘Back Lane.’ Lawyers hired by the Middleton family successfully instructed newspapers never to re-publish the images, which had leaked via a Facebook account with inadequate security settings. But, inevitably, they have endured in cyberspace. And old reputations die hard.
Despite his more diligent existence in recent years — he claims to work 14-hour days — James continues to be depicted as a spoiled playboy living the high-life thanks to his wealthy parents.
It hasn’t helped that he likes to dress expensively in open-necked shirts and designer blazers, often sports a Mustique suntan, and for much of his early 20s drove a rather flashy Range Rover Evoque, the interior of which was designed by Victoria Beckham. Neither, in the depths of a recession, are his domestic circumstances likely to do much for his image, except inspire jealousy.
Raised in Berkshire, and, like his sisters, educated at £30,000-a-year Marlborough College, he lives rent-free in a large Chelsea flat bought by his parents for £780,000 in 2002. The flat, on which there is no mortgage, has since been refurbished and fitted with a CCTV system.
No wonder headline writers this week seized on a line in Nice Group’s accounts, which revealed that the company’s ‘bank overdraft is secured by a member of the director’s family’. The disclosure apparently indicated that relatives have been forced to ‘bail him out of debt’.
James describes this as hugely misleading. Nice Group has not received any direct financial input from a relative, he insists. The family member underwriting his overdraft will be required to dig into their pocket only in the event that the firm goes bankrupt.
James Middleton's only financial help came from his uncle Gary Goldsmith
‘I am the single shareholder, which means I have not brought in any investment from elsewhere,’ he told me. ‘I have financed the company entirely by myself, along with a bank loan.’
In fact, I understand that the only financial help James’s companies have ever received from a relative came in 2007, when his tattooed uncle, Gary Goldsmith — the so-called ‘black sheep’ of the Middleton clan — loaned him £14,000.
The money was used to set up The Cake Kit Company, which he launched after dropping out of Edinburgh University. Its products — disposable kits that allow customers to bake elaborate cakes at home — still sell on Carole and Michael Middleton’s Party Pieces website. They are well-regarded and the business has prospered, allowing James to repay the loan.
Since then, largely because of his youthful indiscretions, which friends describe as out of character, James has been stereotyped as a high-living and somewhat thoughtless socialite in the Prince Harry mould.
In fact, he rarely hits the London party circuit these days, preferring to preside over dinner parties, attend Wimbledon and other tennis events, or visit pubs during tweedy weekends in the country.
His closest friends include two PR girls, Katie Readman and Francesca del Balzo, his socialite chum Antonio del Balzo (Francesca’s brother) and society magician Drummond Money-Coutts.
‘James got naked at a couple of parties ages ago, and everyone thinks he’s a hellraiser,’ says a friend. ‘Well, they’re wrong. He’s actually the reverse of a party animal: quiet and a little bit shy. One of his hobbies is beekeeping, which speaks volumes.’
A failure to live up to the ‘It-boy’ stereotype by falling out of nightclubs with blondes on each arm has seen James endure widespread speculation about his sexuality. After he gave the reading at sister Kate’s 2011 Royal Wedding, web forums buzzed with chatter.
James has never publicly discussed his private life, on the grounds that it would open a Pandora’s Box. But one of his closest friends — who was authorised by Middleton to speak to me — described the suggestion that he is gay as ‘ridiculous’.
‘Believe me,’ she said, ‘anyone who has known James for any length of time would know that’s nonsense. He’s just a heterosexual 25-year-old who is in no rush to couple up and seems happy with the single life.’
Another friend said: ‘If you’ve ever heard James talk privately about girls, you’d know he’s not gay. But he’s not that bothered by the rumours, either. He’s quite “meterosexual” so, in a way, he takes it as a compliment.’
James Middleton rarely hits the London party circuit these days, preferring to attend Wimbledon or spend weekends in the country
Although he occasionally introduces a new squeeze to his friends, James has formed relatively few enduring relationships. His most long-standing girlfriend was a pretty Australian called Amy Bradshaw, who split from him when she returned home in 2010.
‘Because James has been relatively successful at keeping a low profile, he can go out for dinner with a girl and not be recognised,’ says a friend. ‘He’s not hounded in the way Pippa can be. But — dare I say it — he’s also not courted publicity in the way she has, either.’
Many of Middleton’s closest friends speak of an entrepreneurial zeal that mirrors that of his parents, whose business empire started in a garden shed in 1987.
Part of his drive also comes from a lifelong struggle with dyslexia, which forced him to learn by heart the passage from Romans he read on Kate’s big day.
‘He is quite dyslexic, and does sometimes find it hard to structure sentences, even in conversation,’ says a close friend. ‘He wouldn’t admit it, but it has often made life harder for him. It has also forced him to be creative, of course, which has helped in business.’
Though popular and sporty at Marlborough, where he was made head of his boarding house, he struggled academically. At Edinburgh, he dropped out after just a year studying environmental resource management.
He started the Cake Kit Company shortly afterwards using the loan from his uncle, who has made a fortune in IT and is in the process of selling his Ibiza villa, called Maison de Bang Bang.
It was the setting for Goldsmith’s encounter in 2010 with the News Of The World’s ‘fake sheik’, where he was filmed snorting cocaine and offering to procure prostitutes. It has also been an occasional holiday destination for James, who retains a deep affection for his uncle.
Cake-baking is all the rage these days. But it wasn’t five years ago, when he secured Gary’s cash. While the Cake Kit Company has endured, it’s impossible to establish exactly how successful it has been, since James runs it as a sole trader, meaning he doesn’t have to file accounts.
A similar device is used by his parents, who structure Party Pieces as a partnership, making it difficult for outsiders to measure the true scale of their wealth.
Despite the opacity, James insists his cake empire has a solid future: ‘I actively encourage baking — it’s a skill that was being lost — and it’s brilliant it’s coming back.
‘Everybody has a birthday every year, so there is always going to be a market for cakes.’
Like any entrepreneur, he’s always thinking big, too, and recently registered the name Nice Wines, with a view to going into the wine business. Nice Group’s cake personalisation business, he adds, was inspired by the success of Moonpig, the customised greetings card firm. ‘In 2011, Moonpig sold for £120 million,’ James points out.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether anything on that scale will come of Nice Cakes, or even if he’ll be handing out cupcakes at a forthcoming royal christening.
But then, as the world now knows, you can never underestimate the ambition of a Middleton.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-22...l#ixzz2N1zmyEiO
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