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Thursday, August 15, 2013

Battle of the Bannatyne billboard: Ex-wife of Dragons' Den star puts massive advert for her new gym across the road from his health club


  • Joanne Bannatyne refused to say if she was provoking her ex-husband
  • But the billboard promoting her rival health club is visible from his office
  • The advert features her picture and reads 'welcome your new neighbours'
  • Dragons' Den star says his ex-wife 'hates' him after acrimonious split
By Stuart Woledge
The ex-wife of Dragons' Den star Duncan Bannatyne has taken out a billboard-sized advert promoting her new gym - just over the road from his head office.
Joanne McCue Bannatyne is also pictured on the eye-catching poster, which includes the slogan 'Welcome Your New Neighbours'.
It is plainly visible from Bannatyne's office window in his HQ next to Bannatyne's Health Club in Darlington.
Visible: Ms Bannatyne's advert, pictured here on the left, can be seen clearly from her ex-husband's head office just over the road
Visible: Ms McCue Bannatyne's advert, pictured here on the left, can be seen clearly from her ex-husband's head office just over the road
Controversial: Ms Bannatyne has now taken out this advert promoting her rival gym directly opposite her former husband's HQ Controversial: Ms McCue Bannatyne has now taken out this advert promoting her rival gym directly opposite her former husband's HQ
CrossFit: Ms Bannatyne even appears on the advert with her team, pictured here in the centre in a red vest
CrossFit: Ms McCue Bannatyne even appears on the advert with her team, pictured here in the centre in a red vest
Ms McCue Bannatyne, 47, whose divorce from the self-made millionaire was finalised earlier this year, opened her rival CrossFit gym in May at the former Darlington FC stadium, now home to Darlington Mowden Park Rugby Club.
She declined to comment on whether the wording of the advert, which features a group shot of the CrossFit team, was designed to be provoke her former husband.

However, she said: 'This was where we could get the advertising space in Darlington, it is one of the two main routes into the town and hoardings are quite hard to come by.
'Whether or not it's controversial, it picks up people driving into Darlington from Teesside.'
The couple announced they were separating in 2011, five years after they were married. Bannatyne had proposed to the then Miss McCue during a holiday in Barbados.
Happier times: Joanne and Duncan Bannatyne at their home in Cannes, France
Fight-back: Ms McCue Bannatyne has opened a rival gym to her husbands. Right, the couple in happier times in 2009
Fight-back: Ms McCue Bannatyne has opened a rival gym to her husbands. Right, the couple in happier times
Their break-up was particularly acrimonious. After his wealth was valued at £430m in the Sunday Times Rich List, Ms McCue Bannatyne reportedly demanded he pay her £1,000 per day, plus payments for their two children, a house in the UK and holiday home in France.
Bannatyne famously took to Twitter, where he now has more than 630,000 followers, and branded his then wife a 'gold digger'.
But the divorce hit the former Royal Navy sailor hard, and in another tweet he threatened to take his own life, saying: 'My day could not have been worse. Suicide is a considered option.'
The comments were later removed.
Bannatyne operates more than 60 clubs across the country under the Bannatyne Health Club banner and has more than 180,000 members, according to its website.
Last year the Sunday Times Rich List estimated his wealth to be £85m, considerably less than the disputed £430m, which Mr Bannatyne had claimed was one of the reasons for their divorce.


Rival: Ms Bannatyne said the billboard is in a prime Darlington location, visible for motorists coming in and out of the town
Rival: Ms McCue Bannatyne said the billboard is in a prime Darlington location, visible for motorists coming in and out of the town
In May this year it emerged Bannatyne was repaying debts of £122m - money he borrowed from Anglo Irish Bank to buy 24 fitness clubs from Hilton Group in 2006.
The bank later collapsed and Bannatyne was forced to hire a team of legal and financial experts to negotiate the terms of his repayments with administrators KPMG.
Earlier today a spokeswoman for the 64-year-old declined to comment on the latest twist.
However, Bannatyne - who is starring in a new series of Dragons Den, which began on Sunday - spoke about the divorce from his former wife in a recent interview with the Daily Express.
He said: 'Relations could not be worse. She's angry with me, but I still don't know why because she won't speak to me.
'I'm still in love with her, but she hates me.'
It is not the first time a rival fitness business has utilised the advertising space directly outside Bannatyne's.
When Lifestyle Fitness, in Eastmount Road, opened last year, it took out an advert on the same billboard.
Glamarous: The couple, pictured here on their wedding day, divorced acrimoniously last year
Happier times: Joanne and Duncan Bannatyne on their wedding day
Glamarous: The couple, pictured here on their wedding day, divorced acrimoniously last year

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