HE is among the world’s highest-paid male models, with smouldering good looks and a six-pack you could grate cheese on.
But David Gandy has swapped his jet-setting lifestyle for school runs, sleeping alone and discussions about HRT after becoming a father.
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Model David Gandy has swapped his jet-setting lifestyle for school runsCredit: David Gandy Wellwear
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The Brit hunk has daughters Matilda, six, and Tabitha, three, with partner Steph Mendoros, aboveCredit: Getty – Contributor
The Essex-born hunk — who has daughters Matilda, six, and Tabitha, three, with partner Steph Mendoros — may be desired by women across the globe.
But he spent three months kipping by himself on the floor after Tabitha’s birth in 2021, because she was taking up his side of the bed.
In his most candid interview yet, David — who shot to fame wearing tiny white briefs in Dolce & Gabbana ads — tells the latest episode of Fabulous’ No Parental Guidance podcast: “Steph, in the first few months, was sleeping with the baby and was breastfeeding.
“And just so she got a good night’s sleep, she would have the baby there falling asleep.
“That is a situation where you are just going to be a hindrance. You are taking up room. You can’t help.”
He adds: “So when we were building our house, Steph had just given birth to Tabs.
I failed at labour. I kind of turned into George Clooney from ER and thought, “I’m delivering this baby. I was at the business end and the midwifehad to ask me to get out of the way
David
“We were staying in Steph’s old flat while the house was being built, and Matilda had this little room.
“I had nowhere to sleep. I slept on the floor for three months. I had to spin like a dog, trying to find somewhere to sleep.
‘Christmas alone’
“But as long as your partner can get sleep, that’s the main thing. I am fine with no sleep. Steph is awful.”
Since settling down with Steph, a barrister, heartthrob David is now more likely to be found hanging out with the other dads at the school gates than strutting his stuff on the catwalk.
And it seems the menopause is a hot topic for men as well as women.
“The dads have had the [HRT] discussion at the school gates,” David, 45, tells comedian Hannah East and model and influencer Louise Boyce, who host the podcast.
“They say, ‘Get the patch’. Then one dad will go, ‘They’re very horny on the patch!’.”
David and Steph got together in 2016 and daughter Matilda was born two years later.
The model admits that when his girlfriend went into labour, he turned into George Clooney’s character Dr Doug Ross from US hospital drama, ER.
“I failed at labour,” he says. “We still argue about it. I kind of turned into George Clooney from ER and thought, ‘I’m delivering this baby’.
Of course I tried the gas and air. They told me to go and have a sleep and then Steph needed me and the midwife had to go back to Steph and say, ‘I can’t wake him up
David
“I was down at the business end. The midwife had to ask me if she could have her stool back and if I could get out of the way.”
Like most men, David could not resist having a sneaky puff of the gas and air intended to relieve labour pains — only for it to knock him out completely.
He reveals: “Of course I tried the gas and air. They told me to go and have a sleep and then Steph needed me and the midwife had to go back to Steph and say, ‘I can’t wake him up’,” he recalls.
It is all a world away from David’s globe-trotting days as a top-earning male model with an estimated £12million fortune.
After growing up in Billericay, he went on to study marketing at the University of Gloucestershire, where his flatmate entered him into a modelling competition on ITV’s This Morning without his knowledge.
He went on to win a contract with Select Model Management — and a star was born.
His now- infamous campaign for Dolce and Gabanna’s Light Blue fragrance in 2007 — which saw him squeeze into tiny white trunks to cavort on a boat with a brunette — set women’s pulses racing and launched him to stardom.
He now has more than one million followers on Instagram as well as 25million likes on TikTok, not to mention high-profile campaigns for Burberry and Hugo Boss.
After meeting Steph and becoming a dad, he cut back on the commitments that involved him take around 100 flights a year, and has recently launched his own line of underwear for his David Gandy Wellwear brand.
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David on holiday with one of his daughtersCredit: instagram/davidgandy_official
But it could have ended very differently for David — who has also had high-profile romances with singer Mollie King, musical theatre actress Samantha Barks and TV host Laura Whitmore — because he thought Steph had stood him up on their first date nine years ago.
“We met through one of my good friends,” he recalls.
“We kind of knew each other before — we only lived a mile and a half away from each other. We arranged to go for a date, but Steph has a terrible sense of direction and ended up in the wrong pub.”
He adds: “When me and Steph got together, there was a discussion, like ‘When are we having children?’.
“I said I’ve been working solidly. I didn’t take holidays. I didn’t take time off.
“I spent Christmas alone because I was so exhausted sometimes. I just want two years of us two to enjoy being together’.”
Now, having had two kids with Steph, David thinks there should be more education for men about the hormone changes women go through when they embrace parenthood.
“When babies are born, no one ever tells the husband about the hormones,” he says. “Your wife’s hormones are all over the place, before and after giving birth.
I think we are so scared to let our children even out the front door
David
“No one explains that you are probably going to be wrong about everything for the next year and to just put up with it. Just go, ‘OK darling’.”
‘Give kids freedom’
While, nowadays, parents are often super-protective and more overbearing than previous generations, David is making a conscious effort to relax when it comes to raising his daughters.
He explains: “I’m trying to tell myself not to be too protective.
“I think we are so scared to let our children even out the front door.
At nine years old, I was on a bike going through Billericay, travelling five miles out, and my parents were like, ‘It’s cool’.
“My kids are outside for 20 seconds at a supermarket and I’m panicking. I just think we need to allow our kids a bit more freedom.
“That’s advice for all of us — ‘Don’t worry, no one knows what they’re doing’. Generally, everyone turns out OK.”
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The star shot to fame wearing tiny white briefs in Dolce & Gabbana ads
But while he tries to be laid back, David, who is also an ambassador for Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, admits he is not a fan of the trend for “gentle parenting”.
He says: “I teach them, ‘You’re not having iPads. First of all, you have a conversation around the dinner table’.
“I take colouring stuff and I always make sure they’re entertained so they are not bored.
“But they are very polite. I’ve always said, ‘You don’t talk to someone like that. You don’t ask someone like that. Go and get it yourself. Go and do it yourself’.
“I got to a point with my mum and dad where they just needed to give me a look. It seems to work.
“My mum’s best threat that used to shut me up really quickly was, ‘I’m going to come and take your pants down in front of everyone and smack your bum’.
“My mum and dad never smacked me, but it was the threat of my bum being pulled out in front of everyone.”
And while his children might have excellent table manners, David jokes they treat him like a live-in chef at their home in London’s Richmond Park.
He says: “We have a pretty good rhythm going now. I do mornings — the kids are up with me.
“I do the breakfast, which they order from me.
“I am the waiter. I say, ‘What would you like? Do you want porridge today?’.
“And they say, ‘Daddy, I don’t want porridge, I want waffles. Can I have waffles with honey?’. Matilda musy think she’s at a Michelin-star restaurant.
“It’s actually not that chaotic. I put everything out in the evening as I am not a morning person.
FRENCH Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has resigned after less than a month in office.
Emmanuel Macron had only appointed Lecornu on September 9 – marking his fifth Prime Minister in the space of two years.
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French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has resigned after less than a month in officeCredit: Reuters
Lecornu served as Minister for the Armed Forces since 2022 before being asked to serve as PM.
It comes as extremist parties continue to put pressure on France’s political establishment.
President Emmanuel Macron has faced a political crisis since he called an ill-advised snap election last summer.
His centrist bloc lost dozens of seats amid a spike in support for the far-right.
While a left wing coalition came first in the end, no party is anywhere close a majority in the French Parliament.
More to follow… For the latest news on this story, keep checking back at The U.S. Sun, your go-to destination for the best celebrity news, sports news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures, and must-see videos.
Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins concluded last night with Lucy Spraggan, Troy Deeney and Michaella McCollum passing the process, though two other finalists didn’t get that far
One of the unsuccessful recruits from the latest series of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins has opened up about their departure from the reality TV show. Bimini Bon-Boulash was culled from the process after having reached the final.
Bimini, 32, whose real name is Thomas Hibbitts, was a finalist on the Channel 4 show alongside the likes of Adam Collard, who voluntarily withdrew. Last night’s episode instead saw Michaella McCollum, Troy Deeney and Lucy Spraggan pass the gruelling process, unlike the other two finalists.
RuPaul’s Drag Race UK runner-up Bimini was sent home shortly before the end of the experience after failing an interrogation task. The finalists had been given a cover story to present to the interrogators, and Michaella was later “punished” for saying that she couldn’t remember anything.
Bimini Bon-Boulash reached the final of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins but was culled from the process after failing an interrogation task(Image: CHANNEL 4)
Michaella was placed into a pit and co-star Bimini was told to pour cold water on her, in a bid to encourage her to speak out. Bimini however expressed discomfort, including that she would be “freezing,” and ended up disclosing details of their mission to interrogators, which ended the situation.
Following the scenes airing last night, Bimini took to Instagram to address their exit. The drag artist told their followers that they “can’t stand” seeing people be “bullied or hurt,” adding that they left with their head held high.
Bimini wrote: “I went onto @sas_whodareswins to give it everything/body, mind, and spirit. I pushed hard, I smiled through the chaos, and I stayed true to myself. In the end, what I failed on and would be seen as my weakness I would call my strength.
“I can’t stand aggression, violence, or seeing people bullied or hurt – it’s just not in me. I am gutted to not have passed selection, but I’m walking away with my head high and I’m SO PROUD of [the four other finalists on the show].”
The drag artist had expressed discomfort over pouring cold water on co-star Michaella McCollum and instead disclosed details of their mission(Image: CHANNEL 4)
In text written over photos from the episode, Bimini said: “SAS Who Dares Wins is over. I was gutted that I missed out on fully completing the course right at the final hurdle. But seeing someone I had grown so close with during the show (huge love to Michaela, super babe!) in this scenario didn’t sit well with me.
“But I’m still proud of everything I managed to achieve on the show. I passed the majority of challenges and stuck to my morals even under the most difficult situation. This gender bender make it to the finale of SAS Who Dares Wins! That is the biggest win for me.”
After struggling to pour cold water on Michaella and disclosing details of their mission to interrogators, Bimini was sent to see the umpire in the episode. The umpire said: “It is with regret, I’m informing you you have been unsuccessful on this phase of the course. In my professional opinion, you tried to protect somebody from unpleasant conduct, rather than any threat of physical damage or danger.”
Bimini was then praised by the instructors over their efforts throughout the experience. The contestant responded: “I’ve enjoyed it, I’ve had a really good time. I think I just misconstrued that last bit there. I just let the emotions get the better of me in that one minute.”
The latest series of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins is available to stream on Channel 4.
Five jockeys have been banned for 10 days after they failed to pull up in a chaotic flat race at Windsor where a blindfolded loose horse crashed into a plastic running rail.
The five-furlong handicap for apprentice jockeys at 16:52 BST on Monday featured a field of seven, but the result was declared void following a false start.
Master Zack, trained by Martin Dunne, was blindfolded to go into the stalls but reared up just before the gates opened.
Jockey Ryan Kavanagh remained in the stalls but riderless Master Zack set off with his vision obscured by the blindfold.
The three-year-old then veered to the right and crashed into a running rail before being caught with no major injuries reported.
Jockeys Tommie Jakes, Jack Doughty, Jack Dace, Taryn Langley and Alec Voikhansky all completed the course on their respective mounts but according to chief stipendiary steward Richard Westropp, ignored requests to stop.
Westropp said: “Our footage is very clear, the recall man is stood in the middle of the track and blowing his whistle. I think all the procedures were followed correctly.”
All five jockeys will have the opportunity to lodge an appeal.
Brit tourists flocking to a popular Spanish city this summer have been warned over a little-known rule that could result in huge fines of almost £7,000 – especially if you’re staying with friends
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A little-known rule could empty tourists’ bank accounts this summer(Image: Getty Images)
UK holidaymakers have been urged to avoid eye-watering fines exceeding £6,000 when holidaying in Spain this year.
Despite the string of anti-tourist protests that have erupted across the country in recent weeks – it’s clear nothing will deter Brits from enjoying a week in the sun. In fact, Spain received a staggering 17 million international visitors during the first three months of 2025, a 5.7 per cent spike compared to the same duration last year.
It means hotspots like Benidorm, Barcelona, and Madrid could see record-breaking numbers of tourists during the summer holidays – even if fed-up locals continue to cause commotion on the streets. However, sun-worshipping Brits have been warned that a simple error may end up wrecking their finances.
Brits will need proof of their accommodation when entering Spain this summer(Image: AP)
Since the UK left the European Union, those who don’t hold an EU passport now need to carry proof they have accommodation when they visit Spain as a tourist for 90 days or less. If you’ve booked a hotel or rental through a site such as Airbnb or Booking.com – this is pretty straightforward.
Simply printing out your booking reference and handing it over to passport control when touching down in Spain should be enough to prove you have already booked accommodation for your stay. However, if you’re staying with friends or family – this is a little trickier.
As previously reported, you may need to obtain a ‘letter of invitation’ (aka carta de invitacion) from your host, which is an official statement that has to be issued by the police. It is your responsibility to get the letter, and your host needs to be either a Spanish national, an EU citizen living in Spain or a non-EU citizen with legal residence in the country.
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Failure to oblige could result in hefty fines of €8,000 (approximately £6,900). “Accommodation hosts now also have a legal obligation to collect quite a bit of personal data,” explains EuroWeekly.
“Expect to hand over your full name, gender, nationality, passport details, birth date, home address, and even your mobile and landline numbers. Don’t be surprised if you’re also asked how you paid for your stay—this is now the norm, not a scam.”
In a statement sent to the Mirror, Last Night of Freedom, the UK’s leading stag and hen do organiser, also warned of other crackdowns in Barcelona. This includes €300 (£258) fines for illegal gatherings (including pub crawls), and €5,000 (£4,310) fines for those found violating short-term rental restrictions – which mainly applies to local landlords rather than tourists.
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US tech giants Apple and Meta will not face sanctions immediately for failure to meet obligations under the EU’s digital rulebook, an EU spokesperson told Euronews.
In April, the Commission fined Apple €500 million and Meta €200 million for non-compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and gave both companies 60 days to bring their practices in line with EU rules. That grace period ends on 26 June, after which they risk periodic penalty payments.
According to the spokesperson, financial penalties will not be applied automatically but only after the Commission conducts a preliminary analysis and shares its findings with the two tech giants as part of an ongoing exchange process.
Apple was fined €500 million for preventing developers from directing users to alternative offers or content outside its platform—an action deemed contrary to DMA rules.
Meta received a €200 million fine for its “pay or consent” model, which the Commission found problematic. The model forces users to either consent to the use of their personal data for targeted advertising or pay for an ad-free subscription—limiting user choice.
In response, Meta introduced a revised version of its personalised advertising model in November 2024, which uses less personal data. The Commission is still evaluating this system while continuing its discussions with the company.
Compared to past antitrust enforcement, the fines issued in April were relatively modest. Under former EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, tech giants were subject to more substantial penalties.
In April, EU officials explained that the lower fines reflected the short duration of the violations since the DMA implementation started in 2023 and the Commission’s current focus on achieving compliance rather than punishing breaches.
US digital services have been drawn into the trade war that has been escalating between the US and the EU since mid-March. In response to US tariffs, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has threatened to impose a tax on digital advertising revenues.
Meanwhile, a report by the US Trade Representative, published in early April, labelled EU digital regulations as a barrier to US exports.
The DMA is designed to prevent dominant digital platforms from abusing their market power. It aims to open up digital ecosystems controlled by Big Tech and ensure users enjoy real freedom of choice online.
On May 12, the United States and China announced that they are putting reciprocal tariffs on pause for 90 days. Some tariffs will be retained while trade negotiations continue, a joint statement said.
This is yet another reversal of the sweeping tariffs US President Donald Trump imposed in early April that destabilised the global economy and sent stock markets into freefall.
Although he claimed that his measures would make the US economy “boom”, it was clear from the start that they would not work. A trade war cannot improve the lot of American workers, nor bring back manufacturing into the country.
Now spooked by corporations slashing profit targets and reports of the US gross domestic product (GDP) shrinking, the Trump administration appears to be walking back on its strategy. But going back to economic liberalism under the guise of “stability” is not the right course of action.
The current global economic system, distorted by policies favouring the rich sustained over decades, has proven itself to be unsustainable. That is why we need a new world economic order that promotes inclusive and sustainable development across both the Global North and South and addresses global socioeconomic challenges.
The crisis of liberal globalisation
The troubles that economies around the world currently face are the result of policies the elites of the Global North imposed over the past 80 years.
In its original Keynesian vision, the economic order put forward by the Allied Powers after World War II aimed to combine trade, labour, and development best practices to foster inclusive growth. However, over the following few decades, corporate opposition in the US and Britain derailed this order, replacing it with a skewed system centred around the Global North’s chief economic instruments, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, both created in 1944.
In the 1970s, economic elites blamed rising inflation and stagnation not on temporary shocks like the oil crisis but on what they saw as excessive concessions to organised labour: government overspending, strong unions, and heavy regulation. Subsequently, they launched an institutional counter-revolution against the Keynesian model of power sharing and social compromise.
This counter-revolution took shape in the 1980s under US President Ronald Reagan and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who aggressively pursued policies to restore corporate profitability. They slashed taxes on the wealthy, liberalised international capital flows that made it easier to relocate production to low-cost economies, deregulated the financial sector, weakened labour unions, and privatised public services. As a result, outsourcing of labour, tax evasion, real estate speculation, financialisation, and credit-fuelled bubbles became US corporations’ dominant ways of making profit.
In developing countries, the IMF, the World Bank and regional development banks pushed governments to cut public spending, privatise state-owned enterprises, remove trade barriers, and deregulate markets rapidly and with little regard for social consequences.
As a result, the 1980s and 90s became lost decades for many countries embracing globalisation through radical liberalisation. These policies triggered massive employment shocks, rising inequalities, skyrocketing debt and persistent financial turbulence from Mexico to Russia.
East Asian economies were the exceptions, as they learned to circumvent the straitjacket of liberal globalisation and joined the global economy on their own terms.
The biggest beneficiaries of this system were Western economic elites, as corporations profited from low-cost production abroad and domestic deregulation at home. The same cannot be said for Western workers, who faced stagnating real wages, eroded labour protections, and increasing economic insecurity under the pressure of competitiveness, relocation, and automation.
Illiberal economic policy is doomed to fail
For those of us who studied the post-war economic order, it was apparent that without correcting the pitfalls of liberal globalism, a nationalist, illiberal counter-revolution was coming. We saw its signs early on in Europe, where illiberal populists rose to prominence, gaining a foothold first in the periphery and then gradually scaling up to become Europe’s most disruptive force.
In the countries where they gained power, they pursued policies superficially resembling developmentalism. Yet, instead of achieving genuine structural transformation, they fostered oligarchies dominated by politically connected elites. Instead of development, they delivered rent-seeking and resource extraction without boosting productivity or innovation.
Trump’s economic policies follow a similar path of economic populism and nationalistic rhetoric. Just like illiberal economic policies failed in Europe, his tariffs were never going to magically reindustrialise the US or end working-class suffering.
If anything, tariffs – or now the threat of imposing them – will accelerate China’s competitive edge by pushing it to deepen domestic supply chains, foster regional cooperation, and reduce reliance on Western markets. In the US, the illiberal response will drag labour standards down, eroding real wages through inflation and propping up elites with artificial protections.
Furthermore, Trump has no real industrial policy, which renders his reactive trade measures completely ineffective. A genuine industrial policy would coordinate public investment, support targeted sectors, enforce labour standards, and channel technological change towards good jobs.
His predecessor, President Joe Biden, laid the foundations of such an industrial policy agenda in the Inflation Reduction and CHIPS acts. However, these programmes are now under attack from the Trump administration, and their remaining vestiges will not have a meaningful effect.
Without these pillars, workers are left exposed to economic shocks and excluded from the gains of growth, while the rhetoric of reindustrialisation becomes little more than a political performance.
The way forward
While Trump’s economic policies are unlikely to work, returning to economic liberalism will not resolve socioeconomic grievances either. Let us remember that past efforts to maintain this deeply flawed system at any cost backfired.
Following the 2008 global financial crisis, Western governments rescued big banks and allowed financial markets to return to business as usual. Meaningful reforms of the global economic architecture never materialised. Meanwhile, the living standards of working- and middle-class families from Germany to the US stagnated or declined as wages flatlined, housing prices soared, and economic insecurity deepened.
We cannot return to this dysfunction again. We need a new global economic order focused on multilateral governance, ecological sustainability, and human-centric development. Such progressive global multilateralism would mean governments coordinating not only on taxing multinational corporations and curbing tax havens but also on regulating capital flows, setting minimum labour and environmental standards, sharing green technologies, and jointly financing global public goods.
In this new economic order, the institutions of global economic governance would make space for developing and emerging countries to implement industrial policies and build stronger ties with public finance bodies to mobilise patient, sustainable capital. This cooperative approach would offer a practical alternative to liberal globalism by promoting accountable public investment and development-focused financial collaboration.
Parallel to the eco-social developmentalism in emerging economies, wealthy nations need to embrace a post-growth model gradually. This strategy prioritises wellbeing, ecological stability, and social equity over endless GDP expansion.
This means investing in care work, green infrastructure, and public services rather than chasing short-term profits or extractive growth. For mature economies, the goal should be shifting from growing more to distributing better and living within planetary limits. This would also allow more space for low- and middle-income countries to improve their living standards without overexploiting our limited shared natural resources.
With stronger cooperation between national and multilateral public finance institutions and better tools to tax and regulate corporations, governments could regain the capacity to create stable, well-paying jobs, strengthen organised labour, and tackle inequalities. This is the only way for American workers to regain the quality of life they aspire to.
Such progressive multilateralism would be a powerful long-term antidote against illiberal populism. Achieving this shift, however, requires building robust global and regional political coalitions to challenge entrenched corporate interests and counterbalance the existing liberal, capital-driven global framework.
The challenge is clear: not only to critique Trump’s destructive policies but to present a bold, coherent vision of industrial renewal, ecological sustainability, and global justice. The coming months will show whether anyone is prepared to lead that transformation.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
