Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds in London on March 9 Kirsty Wigglesworth / AP
Boris Johnson, 56, has made his public extravagance a political stamp with which half the planet recognizes him, but he has always been extremely jealous of his private life. Despite the fact that, thanks to the tabloid newspapers, half of humanity also knows that it is a real disaster. True to his commitment to intimacy, he gave this Saturday a span of his nose to the critical press that was already anticipating a wedding of pomp and pageantry, and he married his partner Carrie Symonds in a practically secret ceremony, as the
Mail On
has exclusively told
Sunday
.
They have chosen the Catholic Cathedral of Westminster, because the former Conservative Party communication adviser, 33, and current partner of the prime minister, professes that rite.
Johnson inherited Catholicism from his mother, the painter Charlotte Johnson Wall, but converted to Church of England Anglicanism during his years as a student at the elite Eton College.
More information
The woman who twisted the arm of Boris Johnson's almighty adviser
The Downing Street communication team has so far not wanted to confirm or deny the news, but Twitter was flooded throughout the day of congratulations to the couple. The first to do so was the still Chief Minister of Northern Ireland, Arlene Foster (she has announced her resignation in two months' time), followed by the leader of the Labor Party, Keir Starmer, and the
Speaker
of the House of the Commons, Lindsay Hoyle. Priest Daniel Humphries, who has already baptized Johnson and Symonds' one-year-old son Wilfred, has officiated the ceremony. He was also the one who conducted the couple's premarital course. The conservative politician comes from two previous marriages. The first, with Allegra Mostyn-Owen, his college sweetheart from Oxford. Both were part of the group of
Bright and Young
from the prestigious academic institution.
Allegra was the daughter of the millionaire and prestigious art historian, president of
Christie's
auction house
,
William Mostyn-Owen
,
and of the Italian writer, Gaia Servadio.
The marriage lasted six years.
Johnson would later marry his childhood sweetheart, attorney Marina Wheeler.
With her he lasted 23 years, and they had four children.
They divorced in February 2020, when the politician already resided in Downing Street with Symonds.
The two previous marriages were Anglican, so they never existed for the Catholic Church, and Johnson has not needed to annul them to marry his current partner.
According to the
, only thirty guests have attended the ceremony. It is the limit figure allowed by the social restrictions in force in the United Kingdom due to the pandemic. Uniformed police officers have prevented the faithful from entering the cathedral, until half an hour before the ceremony, which took place at two in the afternoon (three, Spanish peninsular time), with the excuse that the building was still closed due to confinement . Only a handful of religious servants were aware of what was to take place in Westminster. According to witnesses, Symonds was dressed in white, "without a veil", and was led to the altar while classical music played.
The newspaper has been able to capture the photo of some of the guests who have attended a short party at 11 Downing Street, where Johnson and Symonds live. Many of them, guests of the bride, were unknown to the public. Johnson's father, Stanley, unable to resist any publicity opportunity, was the only one who posed smiling at the door of the house, arm in arm with his daughter Julia.
The prime minister and his partner had sent a message just six days earlier to several friends in which they asked them to reserve their agenda plans for July 30, 2022, and prepare to attend the wedding. It could be understood, in the current circumstances, that it was a misdirection maneuver. Symonds is in the eye of the hurricane right now for a number of reasons, and both have understood that a flashy and expensive ceremony might not be the best idea. In the first place, because the conservative press considers Symonds the main responsible for a scandal that has done considerable political damage to her husband. The new decoration of the apartment they enjoy in Downing Street would have cost, according to the highest estimates of some media, up to 230,000 euros, and such expense has led to several official investigations,because a large part of that amount was obtained through private donations channeled by the Conservative Party. Second, because it is already clear that the ouster of Johnson's star adviser and Brexit ideologist Dominic Cummings from the government had a lot to do with his personal confrontation with Symonds.
Cummings reported this week in an explosive appearance before a parliamentary commission that, on the same day that Johnson's team was urgently debating whether a strict lockdown should be imposed throughout the United Kingdom to stop the spread of the coronavirus, his girlfriend would not let of calling insistently for the communication team to resolve a personal matter:
The Times
newspaper
said that day that the couple had already tired of the Jack-Russell puppy they adopted, Dilyn, and wanted to get rid of him. "Symonds was completely crazy about it," Cummings said.
Conservative Party communication director during the time she met Johnson, the current wife of the prime minister, announced her engagement, and her pregnancy, in February 2020 via social media. Less than two months later, the politician was torn between life and death in the ICU of a London hospital, a victim of covid-19. Any wedding plan was postponed
sine die.
The beginnings of the couple, when their relationship was already public, had their stormy part. During Johnson's battle to take over the leadership of the Conservative Party, the police ended up going, to complaints from neighbors, to Symonds' London apartment, where the politician had moved. A heated discussion, including banging on the walls, ended in an investigative opening that was eventually shelved. Johnson then began to dodge questions from the press about his privacy, and has maintained his determination until the moment he has reached the altar.