EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Royal stylist went to rehab after divorce and surviving knife attack

To the public, he’s a stylist to the stars who has made organic hair products for King Charles and is an ambassador for the King’s Trust.

Yet Daniel Galvin Jr has revealed that his life was, in reality, so unbearable that he has spent five months in a rehabilitation centre.

‘After five years of life-changing circumstances: attacked, enduring 14 hours of head surgery, the struggles of Covid, losing one of my organic product businesses I built over 25 years, surviving a knife and machete attack again outside my shop in Belgravia, encompassing a weathering painful divorce, letting go of 75 per cent of my material possessions – I came close to giving up for the first time in my life,’ he discloses online.

‘But thanks to my boxing trainer, who gave me a head towel I looked at one morning, embroidered “never throw in the towel”, changed my mindset. 

‘I went to a spiritual medical facility in South Africa for five months, Cedars, with the full support and help of my beautiful family and girlfriend, which, to be frank, saved my life.’

The 54-year-old, whose clients include Johnny Depp, and Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, is the son of Daniel Galvin, Princess Diana’s colourist. 

He enjoyed a privileged upbringing and was educated at £57,000-a-year Millfield school in Somerset.

He divorced Suzanna Galvin, a model turned interior designer, in 2021 after 20 years of marriage. 

The couple lived in a £1.5million Georgian farmhouse in Worcestershire with their son, Rhett, and Suzanna’s son from her first marriage, Raphael Yadgaroff.

A court heard in 2021 that Yadgaroff hacked the stylist’s Instagram account to ‘air his dirty laundry in public’.

Yadgaroff admitted posting a message to embarrass Galvin while he was waiting to be questioned over an alleged assault at the family’s home.

The social media post – purporting to be from the stylist – was published six months after Galvin’s cheekbone was fractured in the row at his home in Worcestershire.

An earlier hearing was told that Galvin was injured after he was allegedly punched and kicked by Yadgaroff. But that trial was aborted due to technical issues.

Cedars, where Galvin has been staying, is a 40-patient, private residential estate which is a leading centre in South Africa for drugs, alcohol detox rehab and relapse prevention.

It’s not the first time Galvin Jnr has sought such help. He spent much of his 20s battling a £1,000-a-day cocaine addiction before admitting himself for a six-month stay at Narconon, a ‘non-medical’ rehabilitation facility in the USA.

Galvin now has a positive outlook for the new year. He says: ‘I’m stepping into 2025 with open arms, with absolute spiritual freedom, a heart free of resentment, self-pity, fear, and anxiety. That’s true freedom’.

Voldemort’s cheeky antics

Tipped as an Oscar contender for his leading role in papal thriller Conclave, Ralph Fiennes fondly recalls mischievous on-set antics when playing Harry Potter villain Lord Voldemort.

‘I had to wear tights under the robes and remember teasing the crew or the stunt team by provocatively lifting my skirts to show them my wonderful legs with the garter belt on,’ reveals the actor, 62. ‘That was me being cheeky.’

King’s joke about ‘selling in-laws’

Did King Charles foresee Princess Diana’s difficult relationship with her mother, Frances Shand Kydd?

I ask only because the King joked about troublesome mothers-in-law to the comedian Eric Morecambe in a letter due to go under the hammer at Hansons auction house on Friday.

‘Thank you so much for your extraordinarily generous gesture in donating your mother-in-law’s fee to the Prince’s Trust,’ he wrote in 1977, four years before he and Diana wed. 

‘I couldn’t be more grateful.’ Morecambe had joked that he had raised the funds by selling his mother-in-law to ‘Arabs’.

‘Let us hope that by your selfless and heroic action you will have inspired a whole generation to sell their mothers-in-law to Arab dealers so that the Trust might benefit,’ added Charles.

Etiquette lessons for Winkleman

Sophie Winkleman, who’s married to Lord Frederick Windsor, son of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, plays a regal role as the Duchess of Rochester in Julian Fellowes’s period drama, Belgravia.

Despite her royal connections, Winkleman, half-sister of Strictly host Claudia, happily took etiquette tips from the ITV show’s historical adviser, Alastair Bruce. 

‘Alastair has been my mainstay for this whole series – he’s been magnificent,’ Sophie says.

‘I’ve asked him questions every single day, from how do you pick up that stem, how do you lay your knife and fork in between eating, everything.

‘I find it’s such a joy and luxury to have someone like that on set every day.’

De Niro’s not waiting

Toby Jones, mild-mannered star of Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, enjoys an unlikely friendship with Robert De Niro.

Once, the Hollywood legend suggested they visited one of the world’s most celebrated restaurants in Spain.

‘He said, “Have you been to El Bulli?” Jones tells the Travel Secrets podcast. ‘I said, “No, I haven’t”, because famously it has a ten-year waiting list. He said, “Do you want to go?”

‘He literally made a call and we went. It was probably the strangest, most exotic, most fascinating meal I’ll ever have in my life. It was like 40 courses up in the hills of Barcelona.’

Bold! Kemp tells of 80s band bust-ups

Spandau Ballet songwriter Gary Kemp admits the band revelled in their rivalry with fellow 1980s groups such as Wham!, Duran Duran and Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

‘The charts were like the Premiership – you all wanted to be No 1,’ he says. ‘And if you could psychologically bring another team down, you would.’

Does Kemp recall threatening one challenger with the words, ‘It’ll be Frankie Goes to Hospital in a minute’?

He replies: ‘That phrase does ring a bell, but I can’t say it was me.’