26 Facts About Richard Desmond

1.

Richard Clive Desmond was born on 8 December 1951 and is a British publisher, businessman and former pornographer.

2.

In 2020, Richard Desmond was involved in controversy after pressuring the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government Robert Jenrick to overrule the Planning Inspectorate and approve a housing development for Richard Desmond's company.

3.

Richard Desmond was born in Hampstead, London, into a Jewish family, the youngest of three children, and was raised in Edgware, in north west London.

4.

Richard Desmond's father was descended from Latvian Jews, and his mother was of Ukrainian-Jewish descent.

5.

An ear infection caused the sudden loss of Cyril's hearing and, according to Richard Desmond, he used to take him along, when he was no more than three years old, to act as "his ears" in business meetings, where he ostensibly acquired his "first taste of business dealings".

6.

Richard Desmond was educated at Edgware Junior School and Christ's College, Finchley.

7.

Richard Desmond left school at 15 and started working in the classified advertisements section of the Thomson Group, while playing the drums at gigs after a day's work.

8.

Richard Desmond owned two record shops by the time he was 21.

9.

Richard Desmond soon began to publish a range of pornographic magazines itself including Asian Babes, Readers Wives and Barely Legal, numbering 45 such titles in all when they were eventually sold.

10.

Richard Desmond put the magazines up for sale in 2001 in an attempt to distance himself from pornography and employed a spin doctor to try and rebrand himself.

11.

Richard Desmond was apparently "wounded" by references to himself as a pornographer.

12.

Richard Desmond has emphasised that his material has been available through WHSmith and Freeview, saying that: "If it was pornography you would end up in prison because pornography is illegal".

13.

In November 2021, The Guardian reported that Richard Desmond was upset at his Wikipedia entry using the word "pornographer" and had instructed lawyers to get the term removed because, in his opinion, the phrase "only refers to publishers of illegal or obscene material".

14.

The deal reportedly left the Americans out of pocket and after Richard Desmond refused to pay compensation, his employee was kidnapped and assaulted in New York.

15.

Richard Desmond called this account "a fantasy", but encouraged his employee to report the incident to the police and hire a bodyguard to protect himself.

16.

In February 2005, The Guardian reported that the claim Richard Desmond had received death threats from the New York Gambino mafia family was contained in affidavits from FBI agents released during Martino's trial relating to the fraudulent use of the telephone lines.

17.

Richard Desmond has denied the whole episode; he asserted there was no evidence he knew about the fraud perpetrated by Martino.

18.

The Evening Herald reported in 2003 that Richard Desmond was using the Express as a vehicle for his racist views.

19.

However, in his appearance at the Leveson Inquiry, Richard Desmond said the Express had been "scapegoated" by the Press Complaints Commission, who had "failed to provide us with any guidance" and were thus implicitly responsible for the defamatory articles.

20.

Richard Desmond reportedly harangued The Daily Telegraph chief executive and associates in faux German at a business meeting and imitated Adolf Hitler.

21.

Litigation began at the High Court on 6 July 2009 over claims in journalist Tom Bower's joint biography of Conrad Black and Barbara Amiel, Conrad and Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge, that Richard Desmond had made a "humiliating climbdown" over an Express story at the end of 2002 on the state of Lord Black's finances, which it was alleged Richard Desmond had ordered to be written.

22.

The Conservative Party Chairman subsequently apologised to members of the 1922 Committee for having allowed Richard Desmond to sit next to Jenrick and allowing Richard Desmond to lobby him.

23.

Richard Desmond became president of the UK Jewish charity Norwood in 2006.

24.

In November 2019, Richard Desmond announced his intention to bid for the National Lottery licence when it came up for renewal at the end of the year.

25.

In October 2010, Janet divorced him and Richard Desmond subsequently married Joy Canfield, a former manager for British Airways, in 2012.

26.

The autobiography received a five-star review in the Richard Desmond-owned Daily Express.