The aristocratic councillor who was criticised for his role in the Grenfell fire has angered locals by writing about dealing with his grief using psychedelics, in a seeming plug for his own company.
Rock Feilding-Mellen, the former deputy leader of Kensington Council, has written for Newsweek about his pain over the tragedy and says becoming a local pariah meant he had to leave London and got depressed. The blaze was “a cataclysmic event that still haunts me” he writes, adding that hs own “grief and shock was compounded by the public anger directed toward me... I became a lightning rod for collective outrage and resentment.”
Feilding-Mellen says that after some years of distress, taking magic mushrooms during a therapy session in Jamaica “quite literally turned my life around”. “I actually tasted optimism and a sense of possibility once again” he writes. A caption at the end of the article adds that he is co-founder of Beckley Waves, a psychedelic therapy company.
Local action group Grenfell United, which represents survivors and bereaved families, said they were “disgusted and outraged” that Rock had used his role in the fire for “his own monetary gain”.
The fire in June 2017 killed 72 people. A public inquiry showed that Feilding-Mellen, who was the council’s housing lead, queried the colour of new cladding, but not whether it was safe. Rock’s mother, Amanda Feilding, the Countess of Wemyss and March, drilled a hole in her own skull in 1970, in a technique known as trepanning.
Towards the end of the article, Feilding-Mellen writes: “The trauma of Grenfell was an earthquake that upended my life. Yet it led me to a form of healing that I would not have considered otherwise. Psychedelics, it turns out, are not merely an avenue for escape or a remnant of rebellious youth. For me, they became a path toward recovery, acceptance, and a new beginning...
“Having experienced the transformative power of psychedelic-assisted therapy first-hand, I realized that I had not only the opportunity but also the obligation to support and continue my mother’s life-long mission, with a particular focus on how to expand safe and legal access to psychedelic therapies”.
Gwynnie and Apple are wellie glad
Occasional actress and wellness “guru” Gwyneth Paltrow and her daughter Apple Martin are keeping the California floods at bay with their matching green Hunter wellington boots. Could their intervention help save the brand? The wellies, beloved by the in-crowd during festival season, may be a rare sight soon as the company that makes them has gone into administration.
Gwynnie and Apple, her daughter with Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, posed up on what appears to be the drive of their nine-bedroom house in Montecito, the same gated community where Prince Harry and Meghan Markle now live. The duo might need raincoats too, as Storm Hilary has hit the Golden State this week.
Markle is rumoured to be starting a wellness brand for rich people along the same lines as Paltrow’s company Goop, which encourages users to “nourish the inner aspect”. Goop recently sang the praises of the £22-per-loaf Happy Tummy Loaf of bread, which promises “perfect poos”. How will Meghan top that?
Giggs’s pyjama party with pals for new album
How to celebrate your new rap album? With a pyjama party, of course. That’s what Giggs did at the weekend for his new record Zero Tolerance, throwing a big party at the Georgian Mansion in Essex last Friday night. Celebrating with him in their PJs were actors Daniel Kaluuya and Micheal Ward and fellow musician Popcaan, while pro skater Rianna Linton and MC Paigey Cakey went along, too. It’s not clear if they later watched a movie and had a pillow fight as with other pyjama sleepovers.
