EXCLUSIVE EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: The world’s first supermodel Jean ‘The Shrimp’ Shrimpton to sell her idyllic seaside hotel in Cornwall for £1.9 million

She dazzled the world as the first ‘supermodel’ appearing on the covers of British, American and French Vogue simultaneously.

Then she became successively entangled with fellow Swinging Sixties icons David Bailey and Terence Stamp, and scandalised socially conservative Australia by attending the 1965 Melbourne Cup in a dress which ended four inches above the knee — arguably the world’s first miniskirt.

But, within a decade, Jean Shrimpton forsook it all, turning her back on her time as ‘The Shrimp’ — a nickname she loathed — in favour of a reclusive life in Cornwall.

It’s there, I can disclose, that Shrimpton, now 81, is embarking on the final chapter in an improbable life, after previous incarnations as Buckinghamshire convent girl, reluctant global trailblazer — ‘I never liked being photographed,’ she pointed out — antique shop-owner and, finally, for more than three decades, perhaps the country’s most understated hotelier at The Abbey, overlooking the harbour in Penzance.

She and her husband, Michael Cox, ‘jumped’ at the chance to buy it in 1979, inspired by memories of the wedding reception they’d held there — as discreet an occasion as Shrimpton could have wished for. ‘We had champagne with fish ‘n’ chips,’ she recalled.

The Abbey, added Shrimpton, was a ‘world out of time’, a place of ‘peace and tranquillity’.

But now the couple have decided to slip away, putting it on the market for £1.95 million.

More recently, the couple, who have a son, Thaddeus, eased the load by converting it into a luxurious, self-catering property.

‘They’re now quite elderly and want to retire,’ Rosie Gillard, of agents Pritchard & Company, tells me. But their love of Cornwall endures. ‘They will remain here after they sell,’ Gillard adds.

So keep an eye out on cliff-top paths: you may glimpse a woman, still beautiful in old age, transfixed by ‘the power of a winter storm’ — a sight ‘both terrifying and exhilarating’, Shrimpton has said, ‘something not to be missed’.

Within a decade, Jean Shrimpton (pictured) forsook it all, turning her back on her time as ‘The Shrimp’ — a nickname she loathed — in favour of a reclusive life in Cornwall

She and her husband, Michael Cox, ‘jumped’ at the chance to buy the property in 1979 (pictured)

Now the couple have decided to slip away, putting it on the market for £1.95 million (pictured)

The usually outspoken Anne Robinson appears to have been desperate to keep her romance with Andrew Parker Bowles a secret.

When I asked The Weakest Link’s former host three weeks ago if she was going out with Queen Camilla’s ex-husband, she dismissed the notion as ‘ridiculous’ and even talked darkly about legal action if such a story was published.

Let’s hope that the dashing former brigadier — who was married to Camilla for 22 years — never has cause to tell Anne: ‘You are the weakest link — Goodbye!’

Billing Eve! Jodie’s £1m better off 

Killing Eve star Jodie Comer is also making a killing in business.

I hear the Liverpudlian actress, 30, saw her fortune rocket by almost £1 million last year.

Accounts published this week for her company Jodesco Ltd report that assets generated in her hugely successful career top £3 million.

The paperwork shows that, after settling tax bills of £256,000 and other credits, she was left with £2.8 million, up from £1.8 million last year.

Her leading role as Villanelle, the crazed assassin, in four seasons of Killing Eve put rocket boosters under her career and saw her quickly become a Hollywood star.

Accounts for the company cover the 12 months to the end of March 2023, which include the last series of the BBC spy thriller, but also her West End and Broadway debut playing barrister Tessa Ensler in the one-woman play Prima Facie.

Next year, the Bafta award winner will feature in a video game, Alone In The Dark, playing the character of Emily Hartwood.

I hear Jodie Comer, a Liverpudlian actress, 30, saw her fortune rocket by almost £1 million last year

 That’s rich… Thieves steal heiress’s inhaler

Heiress India Rose James faced a health scare after her asthma inhaler was in a Miu Miu handbag that was stolen.

The ‘Princess of Soho’, 31, became richer than the late Queen when she inherited £329 million of her grandfather Paul Raymond’s £1 billion Soho Estates empire in 2008.

‘My bag and all my jewellery were stolen from the post office in Soho,’ she says, posting this picture (above) on Instagram.

‘My last inhaler was in there, too. I hope they are happy that I won’t be able to breathe till I can get a doctor’s appointment.’

Heiress India Rose James (pictured) faced a health scare after her asthma inhaler was in a Miu Miu handbag that was stolen

Just Who does Tom think he is?

Tension in the Tardis! The fifth Doctor Who, Peter Davison, has hit back at snarky comments made by his predecessor, Tom Baker, about his ‘contempt’ for later reincarnations of the Doctor.

Last month, Baker, 89, who had the longest stint in the role, ruled out appearing with the other actors at future reunions, explaining: ‘I avoid them, you know. Not with any malice. A degree of contempt, perhaps.’

He added that any such event would be further complicated by him ‘desperately trying to remember who they were’.

Baker has regularly declined lucrative invitations to appear at conventions with other Time Lords. He told Radio Times: ‘Inevitably, comparisons are made and I find them odious.’

Now, Davison, 72, says ‘it’s been tricky dealing’ with Baker.

‘He found it a bit difficult to move on. So I understand him not wanting to reprise it,’ he adds. ‘But I don’t really understand his attitude to the rest of us because the rest of us get along.’

Denny Laine, who died on Tuesday aged 79, could be philosophical after his illustrious career took the inevitable downturn following his glory years with the Moody Blues and then Wings.

Interviewed at his home in 1996, he showed the journalist that his car had a registration plate carrying the letter sequence BIW.

‘Been in Wings,’ he smiled wryly.

It’s Richard… and jolly

While Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan’s marriage has lasted 37 years, the television presenters’ daughter, Chloe, hasn’t enjoyed the same luck.

She announced in September that she and her husband, former England rugby star James Haskell, had separated after five years.

Yet Richard, 67, says he’s proud of how the couple, who have a one-year-old daughter Bodhi, have handled their split.

‘It’s a very civilised, grown-up situation,’ he tells me at the Christmas at Kenwood light trail in Hampstead, North London. ‘We’re still family. The split between James and Chloe is all very amicable and they’re getting on really well.’

He adds of Haskell: ‘He was round the house three or four nights ago having a drink, and we’re all having Christmas lunch together.’

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