YOU wait all year for a good Wag tale and then two come along at once.
The Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy “Wagileaks” story may have headed the news but a sideshow involving former Queen of Wags Lizzie Cundy is straight from a soap opera script.
The plot goes like this. Lizzie, 47, the former model wife of ex-Chelsea and Spurs footballer Jason Cundy, finds out boyfriend Jeremy Gordeno has been cheating not only with his ex but her 21-year-old daughter, too. She dumps him — only for him to pretend he left her.
The drama unfolded on Friday evening as nightclub owner Jeremy — with his glowing tan and flowing, curly locks — issued a statement that he was ending his ten-month relationship with Lizzie.
He described how her red-carpet lifestyle was not for him and claimed he’d had his “emails hacked” and a “secret tracker” put on his car.
But the statement, sent to news publications, raised eyebrows. Why such a long-winded comment to confirm the end of a relatively short romance?
Because Jeremy, 53, was hiding something he was desperate to keep a lid on. He had been caught cheating with the 21-year-old daughter of his ex-fiancee Candice Hodge, 50, who he had also been sleeping with behind Lizzie’s back.
Last week pictures emerged of Jeremy and Francesca at a hotel in Beaconsfield, Bucks, earlier this month, including one of her sitting on his lap in the bar where they enjoyed drinks.
Lizzie is no stranger to the spotlight. A sought-after TV and radio personality who is often on This Morning, she was one of the first to stick up for Coleen after she accused Rebekah of leaking stories about her.
One of the original Wags — who has also told how she became pals with Meghan Markle when the actress visited the UK before she met Prince Harry — Lizzie insisted she is a friend of both Coleen and Rebekah.
But she said of their row: “Coleen really wanted to get to the bottom of it and she did. Coleen is very intelligent, very bright. I don’t think she is given enough credit for that.”
Yet Lizzie now has troubles of her own. She says she was suspicious of Jeremy’s “friendship” with Francesca although he insisted he was employing her as a spy to watch his ex, her mum Candice.
Heartbroken Lizzie says: “I knew something was up, as he kept taking phone calls in secret, being
very shady.
“When I noticed missed calls from Francesca on his phone, he claimed she was a spy working for him, informing him of everything Candice was doing.
“I found it odd that she was ringing but I wanted to believe him. I didn’t expect someone to lie like he did. To go from mother to daughter is disgusting. He can’t lie his way out of this one.”
Candice, who runs a dog-grooming business in Weybridge, Surrey, is already familiar with Lizzie. The Sun reported in May how she stormed into an OK! magazine photoshoot organised by Lizzie and Jeremy at his £5million Hampshire mansion to claim she was still engaged to the businessman.
She was reported to police for allegedly scratching Jeremy’s Ferrari as she fled the house in a rage.
But that was just the start of things to come. Jeremy, son of the late dancer and cabaret singer Peter Gordeno and brother of Depeche Mode keyboardist Peter Dean Gordeno, was dumped by Lizzie after she saw the pictures of Francesca perched on his knee.
Lizzie, who was working in Marbella at the time, cut all contact with him — which sparked his statement. He was hoping to be publicly announce the split first and claim he was doing the dumping.
And things were about to get a lot worse. Candice said she slept with Jeremy in August, when he was seeing both Lizzie AND — she has since found out — Francesca.
Candice first got with Jeremy in 2016 after they met at a wine bar. He then proposed on the Italian island of Capri this year and they had been looking at engagement rings. Candice is now coming to terms with the fact he was seeing Lizzie — and her own child.
The mum-of-two told The Sun: “When I found out he was seeing my daughter Francesca I was physically sick. It is disgusting. Jeremy and I last slept together in August, when I now know he was already in a physical relationship with my child.”
Candice grew suspicious after Francesca starting working with Jeremy, who made his fortune as the boss of West End nightspots.
Candice says: “She was meant to be doing paperwork and he’d given her a car. My suspicions were in overdrive.
I went to his apartment and there were two dog bowls out. He doesn’t have a dog. The food was the type Francesca’s pet eats.
“Things kept adding up. In July I went to Jeremy’s mum’s and Francesca was there. I asked what was going on. She couldn’t even look at me, she just walked out. Then I found them together on two occasions.
“My relationship with her had been difficult when she was a teenager, but we had become really close. When she began working for Jeremy I knew what the next step would be.”
Candice also revealed the three of them used to live together and went on holidays, before Francesca, who has a baby son, moved out of her family home in Cobham, Surrey, to stay with her aunt in nearby Guildford.
Candice added: “I sent her a message saying, ‘I can’t believe you could do this to me.’ She replied, ‘Stop harassing me, or I’ll get the police involved.’ I have had to walk away.
“The awful thing is I still get calls and messages from Jeremy asking if we can see each other. I text him saying, ‘You’re sleeping with my daughter, it’s disgusting’.”
Meanwhile Lizzie says: “I feel a fool. How could I have not seen through his lies? I feel quite traumatised he’s sleeping with a 21-year old and then tells he loves me.”
