Matthew Freud (born 2 November 1963) is head of
Freud Communications, an international
public relations
Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. P ...
firm in the United Kingdom.
Early life
Freud is the son of the actress
June Flewett
June Beatrice Freud, Lady Freud (''née'' Flewett; born 22 June 1927), is a British actress and theatre director. She is also known by her stage-name Jill Raymond, and was usually known as Jill Freud after her marriage to Clement Freud.
As a wa ...
and the writer and German-born British politician
Sir Clement Freud. His sister is television interviewer
Emma Freud
Emma Vallencey Freud (born 25 January 1962) is an English broadcaster and cultural commentator.
Early life
Freud was born in London on 25 January 1962 and is the daughter of politician and broadcaster Sir Clement Freud (1924–2009) and June ...
. His great-grandfather was
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...
. He is the nephew of the artist
Lucian Freud
Lucian Michael Freud (; 8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewis ...
and (by former marriage) of the writer Lady
Caroline Blackwood, and his cousins include fashion designer
Bella Freud
Isobel Lucia Freud (born 17 April 1961), better known as Bella Freud, is a London-based fashion designer.
Life and career
Freud was born in London, England. She is the daughter of Bernardine Coverley and artist Lucian Freud, and the great-gran ...
, and novelists
Susie Boyt and
Esther Freud
Esther Freud (born 2 May 1963) is a British novelist.
Early life and training
Born in London, Freud is the daughter of Bernardine Coverley and painter Lucian Freud. She is also a great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud and niece of Clement Freud. ...
.
Career
Matthew Freud founded
Freud Communications in 1985.
Adam Curtis
Adam Curtis (born 26 May 1955) is an English documentary filmmaker.
Curtis began his career as a conventional documentary producer for the BBC throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The release of ''Pandora's Box (British TV series), ...
in his documentary
Century of the Self describes Matthew Freud as a star in the "new culture of public relations and marketing in politics, business and journalism" that rose in the Clinton-Blair years.
In 2009 PRWeek called Freud "the most influential PR professional in the UK".
Freud, his sister Emma and brother-in-law
Richard Curtis
Richard Whalley Anthony Curtis (born 8 November 1956) is a New Zealand-born British screenwriter, producer and film director. One of Britain's most successful comedy screenwriters, he is known primarily for romantic comedy films, among them '' ...
, sit on the board of
Trustee
Trustee (or the holding of a trusteeship) is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, is a synonym for anyone in a position of trust and so can refer to any individual who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility to t ...
s for
Comic Relief
Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene, or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension.
Definition
Comic relief usually means a releasing of emotional or other tension resulting from a comic episo ...
.
In May 2005, in partnership with
Piers Morgan
Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan (; né O'Meara; born 30 March 1965) is a British broadcaster, journalist, writer, and television personality. He began his Fleet Street career in 1988 at '' The Sun''. In 1994, aged 29, he was appointed editor of the ...
, he acquired ownership of the ''
Press Gazette
''Press Gazette'', formerly known as ''UK Press Gazette'' (UKPG), is a British media trade magazine dedicated to journalism and the press. First published in 1965, it had a circulation of about 2,500, before becoming online-only in 2013. Publis ...
'' and the
British Press Awards
The Press Awards, formerly the British Press Awards, is an annual ceremony that celebrates the best of British journalism.
History
Established in 1962 by ''The People'' and '' World's Press News'', the first award ceremony for the then-named '' ...
, in a deal worth £1million. Many major newspapers boycotted the event citing an apparent conflict of interest as one of the reasons.
According to the ''
Sunday Times Rich List
The ''Sunday Times Rich List'' is a list of the 1,000 wealthiest people or families resident in the United Kingdom ranked by net wealth. The list is updated annually in April and published as a magazine supplement by British national Sunday news ...
'' in 2020, Freud is worth an estimated £170 million, a decrease of £10 from the previous year.
Personal life
Freud's first wife was Caroline Hutton, with whom he had two sons: George Rupert Freud and Jonah Henry Freud. Caroline subsequently married the
9th Earl Spencer, brother of
Diana, Princess of Wales
Diana, Princess of Wales (born Diana Frances Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997) was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and mother of Princes William and Harry. Her ac ...
.
His second wife was
Elisabeth Murdoch, second daughter of
media magnate
A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through perso ...
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...
, head of
News Corporation
News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Ne ...
. When the couple began dating (while working as colleagues), she was pregnant with a second child by her first husband and business partner, Elkin Pianim (the son of Ghanaian financial and political
mogul
Mogul may refer to:
History
*Mughal Empire, or any member of its ruling dynasty
Persons
* Magnate
** Mogul, Secret Service codename for President Trump
** Business magnate, a prominent person in a particular industry
**Media mogul, a person who ...
Kwame Pianim Andrews Kwame Pianim is a Ghanaian financier and former government official. He served as CEO of New World Investments, a company he co-founded in 1995. After ten years as a political prisoner, he made a 1996 bid to run for the president of Ghana, p ...
). The couple married 18 August 2001 at
Blenheim Palace, and have two children, a daughter born in 2000 and a son born in 2007. They divorced in 2014.
During the divorce, it emerged that Freud had fathered a child with a mutual friend two years previously, born in 2012.
In November 2012, Freud was banned from driving for six months and fined £830 after police caught him driving at in a borrowed Ferrari on the
M5 motorway
The M5 is a motorway in England linking the Midlands with the South West England, South West. It runs from junction 8 of the M6 motorway, M6 at West Bromwich near Birmingham to Exeter in Devon. Heading south-west, the M5 runs east of West Brom ...
. His son was asleep in the front of the car at the time of the offence. Exeter Magistrates' Court was told that he had already incurred nine
penalty points
Many countries have adopted a penalty point or demerit point system under which a person’s driving license is cancelled or suspended based on the number of points accumulated by them over a period of time because of the traffic offenses or infrin ...
on his driving licence in the previous three years – two fixed penalties for speeding and one for using a mobile phone while driving.
He is a friend of several members of the Conservative party, including
George Osborne
George Gideon Oliver Osborne (born Gideon Oliver Osborne; 23 May 1971) is a former British politician and newspaper editor who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2010 to 2016 and as First Secretary of State from 2015 to 2016 in the ...
and
David Cameron
David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...
. Freud has also invited Cameron to many events and is part of the so-called '
Notting Hill Set' of influential Conservative-linked figures. During their marriage, Murdoch and Freud owned
Burford Priory
Burford Priory is a Grade I listed country house and former priory at Burford in West Oxfordshire, England owned by Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of Rupert Murdoch, together with Matthew Freud.
History Origin
The house is on the site of a 13th-ce ...
in Oxfordshire, and hence were also considered members of the
Chipping Norton set
The Chipping Norton set is a group of media, political and show-business acquaintances who have homes near the market town of Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire, England. Chipping Norton is located approximately 75 miles from London. The group gain ...
.
See also
*
Freud family
The family of Sigmund Freud, the pioneer of psychoanalysis, lived in Austria and Germany until the 1930s before emigrating to England, Canada, and the United States. Several of Freud's descendants and relatives have become well known in different f ...
References
External links
Freud Communicationsofficial website.
*.
Matthew Freudcollected news and commentary at ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
''.
Matthew Freudcollected news and commentary at ''
The London Evening Standard
The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format.
In October 2009, after bei ...
''.
Matthew Freudcollected news and commentary at ''
The Times of India
''The Times of India'', also known by its abbreviation ''TOI'', is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by The Times Group. It is the third-largest newspaper in India by circulation and largest ...
''.
Follow-Up: Roger Ailes on Matthew Freud ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', 13 January 2010.
Matthew Freud Is The Most Powerful PR Operator In The UK Danny Rogers, ''
PRWeek
''PRWeek'' is a trade magazine for the public relations industry. The original UK edition was the brainchild of the late Geoffrey Lace who at the time worked for Haymarket. After failing to interest Haymarket in his idea he left to launch it on ...
'', 18 May 2011.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Freud, Matthew
1963 births
English businesspeople
Matthew
Matthew may refer to:
* Matthew (given name)
* Matthew (surname)
* ''Matthew'' (ship), the replica of the ship sailed by John Cabot in 1497
* ''Matthew'' (album), a 2000 album by rapper Kool Keith
* Matthew (elm cultivar), a cultivar of the Ch ...
English people of German-Jewish descent
English people of Austrian-Jewish descent
Place of birth missing (living people)
Living people
Murdoch family
People educated at Westminster School, London
English public relations people