Thousands have been reprimanded for breaking Covid restrictions since the start of the pandemic, but what about those people who are rich, famous, do as they like, and in some cases, have written the rules they end up breaking? (Yes, Boris Johnson, we’re looking at you).
As recent events have highlighted only too well, the consequences can be widespread and often career-ending (see: the latest person to be claimed by lockdown laws, Credit Suisse chairman Antonio Horta-Osório).
Who doesn’t love a rogue? Well, those of us forced to stay indoors for months on end don’t. Here are the big names who have been busted for flouting rules or making serious PR faux-pas.
Sir António Horta-Osório
Ironically, Horta-Osório, 57, was hired to fix Credit Suisse’s tanking reputation after a slew of scandals around its alleged spying on senior employees. Portuguese by birth, the Goldman Sachs and Santander alum was asked by former chancellor George Osborne to turn around Lloyds Banking Group after its near-collapse in 2001. He did, became a British citizen, scooped a knighthood and pocketed £60 million.
But last weekend the self-styled financial Galahad — his office featured a cartoon showing a knight on horseback rescuing two banking damsels in distress — fell off his mount. Credit Suisse’s internal investigation found he’d broken Swiss isolation rules when flying into the country and flying out again without isolating. He also watched the Wimbledon men’s final when he allegedly should have been in quarantine, according to UK laws. It’s forced him to resign just nine months into the job.
Novak Djokovic
If you hadn’t noticed, the Serbinator has been in rather a lot of hot water himself. The men’s tennis number one, 34, had his visa cancelled a few days before the start of the Australian Open for not meeting the country’s strict Covid entry criteria. This month, the controversy escalated. Djokovic travelled Down Under, where Aussie PM Scott Morrison continues to impose one of the planet’s strictest lockdowns. Local rules require foreign visitors to be fully vaccinated or have a medical exemption.
Djokovic argued he had one because he’d recently had Covid: it was later revealed that Djokovic tested positive on 16 December but admitted to not isolating afterwards, attending both an interview and photo shoot. His father, Srdjan, even claimed his son was being “held captive”. But Australia stood its ground and the tennis player was deported on the country’s second attempt. Current reports suggest he’ll be banned from the French Open, too.
Rita Ora
Ora voluntarily paid a £10,000 fine for breaching lockdown rules after hosting her 30th birthday party at a Notting Hill restaurant in November 2020, the height of lockdown. Her security team allegedly offered the venue Casa Cruz’s owner £5,000 to host “drinks and nibbles” and switch off CCTV cameras so Ora and her BFFs could party in peace.
The “deeply sorry” singer quickly apologised. It later emerged that she should have been self-isolating at the time after returning from Egypt.
Kim Kardashian
Not strictly a rulebreaker — although her party was a bad PR move that didn’t endear her to fans. Via the medium of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Kim told fans she was “scared to leave the house” after quarantine. That’s understandable. But a Kardashian quarantine is not like the others. Her reality TV vehicle failed to document the moment in October 2020 when she flew friends and family out for a holiday on a private island, which reportedly cost $1 million, to celebrate her 40th birthday, despite the ongoing pandemic.
She later told her 190 million Instagram followers that the group had headed on the trip to “pretend things were normal just for a brief moment” — riding bikes, whale watching, and having spa treatments — after “2 weeks of multiple health screens and asking everyone to quarantine”. On one hand, not illegal. On the other, since when did whale watching count as normal?
Dominic Cummings
He might be behind the latest accusations against the PM, but there’s no forgetting Dominic Cummings’s own rule-breaking, meme-igniting car-journey (-crash?) moment. The ex-aide’s Barnard Castle scandal took place back in May 2020, right at the time he was masterminding Britain’s “flatten the curve” lockdowns. Days after the PM went down with Covid, Dom received a phone call from wife Mary saying she felt too unwell to look after their four-year-old son. Worried he’d go down with the virus, too, Cummings and his wife decided the only option was to take a 264-mile trip while the national guidance was not to travel — arguing they needed to reach his parents in Durham to help with childcare.
Cummings sightings spiked in woodlands and villages all over Durham, like those of a beanie-wearing Bigfoot. Hence the infamous address at No10 when he explained — but hardly apologised — to a furious public that he’d driven his family 30 miles to Barnard Castle, a mediaeval ruin, to “test” whether his eyesight had recovered from the virus. Johnson rejected calls to fire him. Funny now, with hindsight: the “bring your own booze” Number 10 garden party, which the Prime Minister has admitted to attending, took place just days before Cummings’s trip to Barnard Castle was exposed.
Kay Burley
News anchor Burley is back on primetime Sky News, this week skewering Dominic Raab for his role in Partygate. But the titan of “gotcha” broadcasting was taken off air in December 2020 for six months after hosting her 60th birthday party in London when it was under Tier 2 restrictions. Sky’s political editor, Beth Rigby, and north of England correspondent Inzamam Rashid also agreed not to be on air for three months after joining her at the bash.
Neil Ferguson
Imperial College’s “Professor Lockdown” — architect of No 10’s stay at home order — quit his government role on the Sage committee in May 2020, after it emerged he’d asked his mistress Antonia Staats to travel across the capital to meet him at his home at least twice in March 2020. Ferguson was extremely apologetic about what happened, calling his actions an “error of judgement”, and saying at the time, “I deeply regret any undermining of the clear messages around the need for social distancing.”
Dr Catherine Calderwood
You know the score by now: she was the voice of Nicola Sturgeon’s campaign urging people to avoid all non-essential travel, but Dr Catherine Calderwood couldn’t quite resist the urge for a wee jolly herself. The Chief Medical Officer, Scotland’s edition of Professor Chris Whitty, lost her £120k job almost two years ago after she, her hubby, dog and three kids headed to their second home in Earlsferry for a beach weekend in April 2020.
It took her a week to admit the getaway had taken place, although she did then apologise. Initially, the Scottish government had claimed she had visited the seaside home to “check on it” — but after seven hours of slugging it out, a reluctant Sturgeon accepted Calderwood’s resignation. Not to worry: Calderwood, 53, has since bagged an £85k NHS gig as national clinical director of the new centre for sustainable delivery at the Golden Jubilee hospital in Clydebank. Forget sustainability drives, that’s simply good old recycling.
