Top Brexiteer Boris Johnson is hoping to finalise the divorce with his wife of many years Marina Wheeler within six weeks in order to “move on” with his 31-year-old girlfriend Carrie Symonds - a former Conservative aide, PR pro, and media mogul heiress, The Mirror reported.
“There have been lots of emotional conversations and dinners with each of their four grown-up children. He has told them he wants to do the right thing”, an unnamed insider told the outlet, noting that Wheeler is expected to “walk away with a handsome deal”.
If the speculation is true and Johnson really is looking to marry Symonds, along with assuming the top government post amid the ongoing Brexit chaos, he could become the first prime minister to have a wedding while in office in over 200 years.
While Symonds’ rumoured husband-to-be is making headway towards becoming prime minister after receiving the support of one third of Tory MPs in the first round of voting, Symonds, dubbed the Brexiteer's "First Lady", has come under scrutiny by the media.
From Southwest London Girl…
Symonds was born into the family of The Independent co-founder Matthew Symonds and Josephine Mcaffee, one of the newspaper’s lawyers. She grew up in southwest London and reportedly attended the private Godolphin and Latymer School, going on to study theatre and history at Warwick University. The Daily Mail describes her as “gregarious, intelligent, ambitious, strong-minded and attractive”.
It’s not exactly much to ask, is it? 🐋
— Carrie Symonds (@carriesymonds) April 25, 2019
Proud to be wearing @khamnettlondon in support of @WHALES_org
You can support too at https://t.co/yhgAjovGHL #PleaseStopKillingWhales pic.twitter.com/VKo14yTTlL
…to Tory PR Prodigy
According to the media, she “quickly made a name for herself” and joined the Conservative headquarters as a press officer in 2009, but quickly rose to director of communications at the Conservative Campaign HQ. Working for the Tories, she became acquainted with Johnson when she cooperated with his London mayoral re-election campaign.
Tory Rocker
According to The Daily Telegraph, Downing Street was surprised in March 2018 when it was revealed that leading party figures such as Johnson, Michael Gove, and Sajid David had attended her “alcohol-fuelled 30th birthday bash”.
“The feeling inside No. 10 at the time was very much along the lines of: ‘What on Earth were they doing there?’ Did they regularly turn up at children’s parties? It seemed very odd indeed”, an ex-government aide told the paper.
This came as reports emerged about her alleged romance with Boris Johnson, who is 23 years older and still married.
From Politics to Cleaning Oceans
After their relationship became a matter of public knowledge, she left her job as a Tory spin doctor and joined Bloomberg’s ecological initiative Vibrant Oceans. However, with her boyfriend being back at the front of the British politics, she entered the spotlight once again. Among other things, Symonds, who accompanied Johnson at the launch of his campaign, has been given credit for recent image changes.
Happy #WorldOceansDay!
— Carrie Symonds (@carriesymonds) June 8, 2019
I’m taking @CoronaUK’s pledge against plastic to help #ProtectParadise. #NoPlasticBottles for a month. Think you can do it too? Join the wave of change.
Spectator author Harry Mount suggested that the 31-year-old is behind Johnson’s becoming “thinner and more smartly dressed than he’s been for years”.
Love Nest at Downing Street?
According to The Daily Express, Symonds and Johnson now live at his London home. However, some reports suggest that if Johnson is to eventually relocate to a new home in No.10, Symonds will join him. As The Sunday Times says, Johnson is said to be “so enamoured of his new girlfriend that he wants to make her his third wife”.
Huge congratulations to the lovely @SimonClarkeMP for winning Greenest MP at the @TheCCoalition Green Heart Hero Awards. A very worthy winner. #ShowTheLove pic.twitter.com/YpGl6V3aLB
— Carrie Symonds (@carriesymonds) March 11, 2019
In the meantime, tabloids are fishing up juicy details about the romance. The Sun suggests a cosy relationship between the Brexiteer and his so-called first lady. Amid the talk around the rumoured couple, Johnson and Symonds’ nicknames for each other have been revealed. As it turns out, the 54-year-old ex-foreign secretary calls her an “otter”, while she uses a reference to the Muppet Fozzie and refers to him as “Bozzie Bear”.
