SEBASTIAN SHAKESPEARE: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle snap up Desert Island star Kirsty Young to direct their Sussex Royal foundation

When Prince Harry married Meghan Markle last year, Kirsty Young chose to present the BBC’s wedding coverage rather than take up her place in the seats at St George’s Chapel, Windsor.

Now, however, the broadcaster has demonstrated her closeness to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex by agreeing to become a director of their charitable foundation.

‘I can confirm that Kirsty Young will be a trustee of Sussex Royal,’ says a spokesman for the foundation, which is due to be launched formally next year.

The broadcaster has demonstrated her closeness to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex by agreeing to become a director of their charitable foundation 

It’s being created after Harry and Meghan decided to split from the Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. 

Courtiers had hoped that the brothers and their wives would form a ‘Fab Four’ and campaign together. 

However, following reports of a rift, their charities are splitting as well as their households.

The charitable foundation is being created after Harry and Meghan (above yesterday in London) decided to split from the Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

Kirsty, who is married to Soho House private members’ club tycoon Nick Jones, has shown that she is clearly in ‘Team Sussex’, not ‘Team Cambridge’.

Although several other people have already been named as directors, a royal source tells me: ‘As a trusted friend, respected journalist and UK president of Unicef, Kirsty was the first person their Royal Highnesses asked to join Sussex Royal earlier this year. Schedules have meant the formal paperwork was not able to be completed and filed until today.’

Harry and Meghan have many connections to the sprawling Soho House empire. 

They are believed to have gone on their first date to a London branch and the Duchess’s close friend, Markus Anderson, is a consultant for the club.

Among the other outposts they’ve visited are Soho Farmhouse, in Oxfordshire, and Soho House Amsterdam, whose opening party they attended.

In the summer, Kirsty stepped down as host of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs after being diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a condition that causes pain all over the body.

Kirsty, who is married to Soho House private members’ club tycoon Nick Jones, has shown that she is clearly in ‘Team Sussex’, not ‘Team Cambridge’ 

Annabelle Wallis pulled out all the stops when she attended a Women In Film event this week in Beverly Hills

Coldplay Chris’s ex gets secret off her chest

Actress Annabelle Wallis, who claims her look is influenced by both her Hollywood lifestyle and English upbringing, pulled out all the stops when she attended a Women In Film event this week in Beverly Hills.

The 35-year-old former lover of Coldplay’s Chris Martin arrived at the bash — also attended by Chris’s ex-wife, Gwyneth Paltrow — in a Ralph Lauren tuxedo jumpsuit.

Peaky Blinders star Annabelle, who played Jane Seymour in the BBC drama The Tudors, tells me: ‘It’s fun to experiment with fashion. I try my hardest to remain elegant but then I want to have fun.

‘Bras are uncomfortable. I prefer not to wear them, but I can hang freely and you wouldn’t even notice if they were there or not.’

Sir Salman Rushdie’s daughter-in-law, jazz singer Natalie, was forced to fight back the tears when she joined him at The Booker Prize in London this week — not because the shortlisted author didn’t win, but because she suffered a last-minute wardrobe malfunction.

‘I burst out of my dress just before I left the house,’ she told me at The Guildhall, where the 32-year-old sported an Adrianna Papell gown.

She adds: ‘As I was walking out the door the zip burst. My husband Zafar looked at me and said, “Don’t cry, let’s go upstairs and pick another dress.” 

So I took my sad self up the stairs. A couple of years ago I would have cried. Life is too short to cry.’

Old Harrovian crooner James Blunt has found a novel way to call time on drinkers at The Fox And Pheasant, the pub he and wife Sofia Wellesley bought last year near their Chelsea home. 

‘Five minutes before closing time we whack on You’re Beautiful so they know that’s it,’ he says. 

James Blunt has found a novel way to call time on drinkers at The Fox And Pheasant, the pub he and wife Sofia Wellesley bought last year near their Chelsea home

Dancing Balls bounces back

Former Strictly Come Dancing contestant Ed Balls is to reprise his celebrated Gangnam Style routine for charity this week.

‘I am coming out of retirement from my life as a former dancer,’ jokes Balls, who will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of Action For Stammering Children. 

The former Labour Chancellor admits he only realised he had a stammer when taunted by late parliamentary colleague Gwyneth Dunwoody, who shouted at him in the Commons: ‘He’s supposed to be the Education Secretary but can’t get his words out.’

Some decisions lead to painful regret — a lesson learned by Bob Geldof’s younger daughter, Pixie, pictured last month

Love’s labour’s lost: Pixie lasers off poem

Some decisions lead to painful regret — a lesson learned by Bob Geldof’s younger daughter, Pixie, who expressed remorse yesterday as she got a tattoo removed.

The 29-year-old singer shared footage on social media as she had the Philip Larkin quote, ‘What will survive of us is love’, which had been inked on to her right arm, lasered off. 

She followed it with a warning: ‘Once again, don’t get tattoos, kids!’

Pixie, whose late sister Peaches once proclaimed she regretted ‘every single tattoo I’ve ever had done’, has several other inkings, including her mother Paula Yates’s signature.   

The 29-year-old singer shared footage on social media as she had the Philip Larkin quote, ‘What will survive of us is love’, which had been inked on to her right arm, lasered off

Double Booker Prize winner Margaret Atwood reveals she’s acquired a fondness for children’s cartoons to help cope with the loss of her long-term partner, Canadian novelist Graeme Gibson. 

‘I saw Captain Underpants the other day and I loved it. I’m drawn to the silliness of certain things at certain times of my life,’ she tells me. 

‘Silly distraction is important. My husband died a month ago, so that’s why I’m watching silly movies. Sometimes I watch profound movies, but not right now.’ 

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