Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, the presenter who made his name fronting the BBC show Changing Rooms, has revealed he turned down a near £500,000 offer to front a television advertising campaign for an electrical firm at the height of the show's popularity because he thought it "sounded rather boring."
The 61-year-old said that when the campaign eventually aired without him, it was "pilloried for being a magnificently dull campaign." He said he has also turned down television programmes he felt were "unnourishing."
Llewelyn-Bowen presented Changing Rooms from 1996 to 2004 and has since appeared on The Weakest Link and Interior Design Masters. He lives in a manor house in the Cotswolds with his wife, Jackie, their two daughters, sons-in-law and four grandchildren.
Early life and family
Llewelyn-Bowen said his father was an orthopaedic surgeon in Harley Street who died of leukaemia aged 42, and his mother was a teacher who had multiple sclerosis. He said the family must have struggled financially after his father's death, though his mother tried not to make that apparent.
He and his siblings received a few farthings a week in pocket money, and his clothing allowance as a teenager was £30 a week in today's money. He described himself as "a bit of a New Romantic" as a teenager, though he said he never went as far as wearing a beret.
Making ends meet
Llewelyn-Bowen said he has "always struggled to make ends meet" and that, now in his 60s, he has noticed "the money-tree bears less and less fruit." His younger daughter, Hermione, who is managing director of his company, regularly puts him on what he called a "money diet."
He said he is more careful with money now than when he was younger, when he was constantly buying books, clothes and cigarettes. He was smoking a pack a day at one point but quit 25 years ago, which he said has saved him a fortune.
He said he does not regard what he was paid for presenting Changing Rooms as "silly money," and has never been offered "ridiculous money" to appear at a wedding. He said he could have earned more if he had been "an out and out media whore," but described himself instead as "a media whore lite."
He named the 1990s and 2000s, when he was "the new dandy on the block," as the best years of his financial life. He said he is aware of how "Marmite" he is as a public figure and has never wanted to be popular with everybody, adding that he thinks a lot of people see him as "a high street Joan Collins."
Spending and business
Llewelyn-Bowen said that when he lived in London he used to do "some quite serious damage" in Greenwich Market after a couple of bottles of wine at lunchtime. He said the only pricey things he buys for fun now are clothes and shoes: three-piece suits made by his tailor cost about £1,200, some of which he is still wearing ten years later, while his Jeffery-West boots cost about £600.
He described setting up his own product design company as his best financial decision. He works with a number of retail chains that sell his branded products, including rugs and kitchens, which he called "the real engine room of my finances."
Family, pension and property
Llewelyn-Bowen said he believes parents are "duty-bound" to help their children financially, though he said he has never wanted to "fill a swimming pool with gold coins" for his family. He said it is wrong to criticise someone as a "nepo baby" simply for having a famous parent. His daughter Hermione is managing director of his company, and his other daughter, Cecile, runs his emporium in Cirencester, Gloucestershire.
He said he paid into a pension for a number of years but that it "didn't do spectacularly well," so he cashed it in to pay for home improvements. He said he does not plan to retire for a while yet.
Llewelyn-Bowen lives in a 17th century manor house on the outskirts of Cirencester, which he bought for about £1.2 million 20 years ago and which he said has more than doubled in value since. The property has been subdivided so that he and Jackie have a two-bedroom flat, while their daughters and their families live elsewhere in the house.
Politics and priorities
Describing himself as "pretty apolitical," Llewelyn-Bowen said his sons-in-law have been "incredibly hard hit" by VAT being applied to school fees, to the point that they are considering moving their children to a local school. Asked what he would do if he were Chancellor, he said he would "have a solid gin" when he got home.
Asked about his number one financial priority, he said it was "just to make sure my wife has enough gin to keep her from kicking me out."
Llewelyn-Bowen has partnered with Smart Energy GB to promote the use of smart meters in homes.
