Eldest daughter of F1 star divorces husband after 14 years of marriage (2024)

She's shot through every stage of her life pretty well perfectly so far.

Her childhood was a blur of chequered flags, as her father, Eddie Jordan, raced his team up the ranks of Formula One.

Boarding school followed at Marlborough, where a young Catherine Middleton was a fellow sporting star.

Then came a blistering, four-year burst as a bond trader in New York — the prelude to establishing her own award-winning fashion brand which secured the devotion of Sienna Miller and Gigi Hadid.

But I can disclose that Zoe Jordan, the eldest of Eddie's four children, is now enduring what may prove a protracted and painful pit stop — a sad but inevitable consequence of a marital crash.

Fourteen years after she and financier Steve Aspinall married in Deia, Majorca, their union is ending in divorce — the subject of a three-hour hearing held yesterday in London's Central Family Court.

Zoe, 43, declines to comment, but earlier this year she posted a heartfelt statement on social media. 'Personally,' she recorded, 'the past years have been particularly tough, I've experienced loss and grief in many forms, both professionally and personally.'

She left it at that, omitting any mention of Steve, 44, with whom she and their three daughters — Eden, Dylan and Inez — moved back to Spain in 2018.

Instead, she extolled the island which she and the girls continue to enjoy.

'We weave freely between the mountains and beaches by day and ride Vespas in search of tapas by night,' she added.

Zoe now boasts a qualification as a health coach in naturopathy — a branch of alternative medicine which advocates the use of natural remedies, from herbs to acupuncture.

'My goal is to empower you to embark on a new chapter, reclaim your independence and confidently march to freedom,' she says.

Something of a personal manifesto, too, it would seem.

Mungo Jerry star's fight to protect hit

While some pop stars are worried about being replaced by Artificial Intelligence, one veteran rocker is using the technology to protect his biggest hit from piracy.

Ray Dorset, of Mungo Jerry, is trying to stem losses from the band's 1970 hit In The Summertime.

'It's been estimated that over £23 million in royalties have been lost on just that one song,' he tells me.

'I've heard it on TV ads, film soundtracks, seen it bootlegged and now in the streaming age.'

He's using the Northern Irish tech firm TCAT to trace use of the song. Dorset, 78, adds: 'At least I can now protect the future.'

Russell Watson's farm venture changes his diet

Classical singer Russell Watson's decision to start a farm in Cheshire with his wife, Louise, is having a radical effect on his diet.

'I'm not eating lamb at the moment because we've got two baby lambs on the farm, and it doesn't feel right,' he admits.

Stanley Johnson's farm scare

Boris Johnson's father, Stanley, was buried up to his neck in sand on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!But his Exmoor farm sounds more dangerous.

Pointing to a gate while driving his old Land Rover, Stanley, 83, says: 'It looks surprisingly new, because my brakes failed me... I careered through the old gate, splintering it.'

Yikes!

Why Honeysuckle Weeks played a wife?

Foyle's War star Honeysuckle Weeks had a personal reason for playing a strong wife in the play Accolade, at Theatre Royal Bath.

'My own marriage was beset with trials — and this is not dissimilar to my own marriage,' says the actress, 44.

She split up with her late husband, aristocratic hypnotherapist Lorne Stormonth Darling, in 2019, posting an online message saying: 'Bye bye marriage.'

Sorry Jack... but Roxy's music is now opera!

Jack Whitehall has made millions from comedy, but his girlfriend, Roxy Horner, has acquired a taste for more elevated entertainment.

'I've really got into opera music,' the 33-year-old model tells me at the Knights of Charity gala in Cannes, which she attended with Jack and where Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli performed. 'I feel like this is my little starter.'

The art form has yet to captivate Marlborough College-educated Jack, 36, whose pals include Princess Eugenie. 'She [Roxy] was asking me to take her to the opera the other day, and I said, 'I don't need to', but now she's having a little snippet,' he says.

Jack adds: 'A ten-minute Andrea Bocelli set — it's better than sitting there for three hours.'