Michelle Mone 'surprised' not to be asked about 'bras and knickers' as she hits out at press 'obsession' with her

4 January 2024, 15:12 | Updated: 4 January 2024, 15:17

Tory peer Michelle Mone has hit out at the press' 'obsession' with her personal life as she flippantly claimed to be surprised not to have yet been asked about her 'bras and knickers'.

The Tory peer - known as the 'Bra Baroness' - last year admitted she lied when she denied links to PPE Medpro, which was awarded more than £200m to supply the government with protective medical equipment amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The company is currently being sued by the Department for Health for £133m over claims surgical gowns it supplied were inadequate. Mone has since had the whip removed.

Attacking The Mirror after the paper reported Mone and her billionaire husband Doug Barrowman were having an £80 million fire sale of their superyacht, private plane, and luxury Caribbean villa, the lingerie magnate said the media was "desperate" and had reached "absurd levels".

"The media’s ridiculous obsession with every tiny detail of my personal life continues to reach desperate and absurd levels," Mone wrote on X.

"At this rate, I’m surprised the Daily Mirror hasn’t sent an email asking to know how many bras and knickers I own!"

She said The Mirror's report was "another futile attempt to distract from my husband’s robust fightback against the PPE allegations.

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It comes after Mone, 52, revealed her bank accounts were frozen following a two-year investigation by the National Crime Agency into allegations of fraud and bribery surrounding PPE Medpro.

Mone and Barrowman have put several of their assets up for sale which they own through a string of off-shore companies, The Mirror reported. The couple is set to lose £29m if they sell the assets at their current listing price.

The assets include a yacht - named Lady M - which became infamous when Mone posted a picture of herself in a bathing suit on the vessel in the Mediterranean with the caption: "Business isn’t easy. But it is rewarding.”

After its price was slashed by £3m, the luxury vessel is now on sale for £7m. The yacht is owned by off-shore Isle of Mann company LM Yachts Ltd, which is run by former PPE Medpro director Voirrey Coole.

Also for sale at a cut price is a £41m six-bedroom luxury villa on the picturesque island of St Barts in the Caribbean.

The 17,000 sq ft six-bedroom mansion, which Barrowman built in 2018 is claimed to be one of the biggest on the Caribbean island. It has reportedly played host to the rich and famous including Jay Z and Beyoncé.

It has been on sale since 2021 - originally listed at £63m but now cut down to £41m.

The Mirror also reported that the couple's £19m London townhouse was sold last year, as well as their £7m Algarve, Portugal, villa.

The 'Baroness Bra' and husband Barrowman also have a £7.5million Cessna Citation CJ4 private jet listed for sale.

It is listed as owned by the Isle of Man company Cabbane Limited, which is wholly owned by Barrowman and is run by director Anthony Page - also director of PPE Medpro. The aircraft has been listed for sale by an American plane broker, The Mirror reported.

In response to The Mirror's report, a spokesperson for Mr Barrowman said: “The media’s ridiculous ­obsession with every tiny detail of Michelle and Doug’s personal life continues to reach desperate levels.

"They have both been very successful in business for decades, so if the Daily Mirror plans to write about every asset that they own, might be buying or could be selling, its ­journalists would writing for a very long time.

"This is a futile attempt to distract from Doug Barrowman’s robust ­fightback against the PPE Medpro allegations over the last few weeks.”

It comes after Barrownman claimed his family had been "treated as a punchbag" for the "lamentable failures" by ministers when procuring personal protective equipment (PPE) during the pandemic.

In a statement published by Lady Mone on X, formerly Twitter, on New Year's Day, Barrowman said it "suits the agenda" of the UK Government to "scapegoat" him and his wife for their part in supplying items designed to protect against coronavirus infection through the firm PPE Medpro.

Lady Mone has admitted she lied when she denied having connections to the company, a consortium led by her husband, which was awarded contracts worth more than £200 million to supply gowns and face masks.

The lingerie entrepreneur stands to benefit from its £60 million in profits that have been placed into a trust by her husband.

Mr Barrowman said he and his family have been "treated as a punchbag by the media for the past three years" and have "received death threats and a constant torrent of online and other abuse" as a result of the row.

In his statement of more than 1,000 words published on Monday, Mr Barrowman looked to turn the debate on to what he said were failures by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) during its PPE procurement.

"Michelle and I are being hung out to dry to distract attention from Government incompetence in how it handled PPE procurement at time of national emergency," Mr Barowman said.

"Medpro supplied the Govt with 1.5% of PPE spend (£202 million) against a total of £13.1 billion and yet the media or Government refuses to focus on the other 98.5% of PPE supplied; much of which was defective or never used and/or supplied in identical circumstances to the Medpro contracts."

He branded it "simply unacceptable" that the UK Covid-19 Inquiry is not scheduled to review pandemic PPE procurement until 2025 - after a general election expected to take place this year.