Matt Hancock has called off his search for a celebrity agent as his bid for fame fails to get off the ground.
The former UK Health Secretary quizzed showbiz pals on who should represent him as he seeks to cash in on his notoriety.
But now he has abandoned his search for an agent amid signs his star power has already faded. One PR expert suggested he would struggle to find anyone willing to take on the job anyway.
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Hancock got to the final of ITV’s I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!, finishing in third place. But his short-lived popularity has not translated into sales of his book on the Covid-19 pandemic, which only shifted a few thousand copies.
Even Hancock’s allies now admit it is looking unlikely he will ever achieve true celebrity status. The Mirror revealed earlier this month the 44-year-old wanted to start a TV career after being given the boot by the Tories for abandoning his constituents.
He is thought to have earned a fee of around €450,000 for his stint in the jungle and €50,000 for a yet-to-be-broadcast spell in Channel 4’s Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins.
PR guru and media expert Mark Borkowski said: “I would have thought that there wasn’t a lot of interest in Matt Hancock, in terms of the toxicity of taking him on.
“Some of your clients may be uneasy about you representing the wrong kind of person.
“I always felt the shadow would come pretty quickly once the hype died down.”
Hancock announced earlier this month he will step down as an MP at the next election. His Pandemic Diaries entered the Neilsen charts at 191 this month and has now fallen out of the top 1,000.
It sold 3,304 copies in the first week and just 600 in the second.
A spokesman for Hancock said: “Matt has had lots of offers from agents wanting to represent him, but he’s turned them all down as he doesn’t want or need an agent.”
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