Matt Hancock’s dream of a glittering TV career appears to have been switched off… as his firm has just £1 in its coffers.
The ex-Tory Health Secretary – forced to resign after being caught in a steamy office clinch in breach of Government Covid rules – got a taste for telly life when he landed £320,000 to appear on I’m A Celebrity in 2022. He also appeared on rival reality hit SAS: Who Dares Wins, then launched broadcasting company Greenhazel Ltd in the hope of making it big on our screens.
But the Sunday Mirror can now reveal papers filed at the end of January, when the venture was classified as ‘dormant,’ show it had just a pound in its accounts. The flop comes after Labour MP Richard Burgon branded his move into the media “disgraceful” and accused him of “chasing celebrity money.”
Hancock, 46, who quit as MP for West Suffolk after the general election in July, launched Greenhazel Ltd in 2023 and is listed as the sole director of the company. He saw a lucrative new career beckoning after being effectively suspended from the Tory party and forced to sit as an independent MP over his appearance on I’m A Celeb – in which he came third.
He later appeared on Celebrity: SAS Who Dares Wins and spoke of plans to make serious documentaries, tackling topics such as dyslexia and assisted dying. It’s unclear how the ex-MP currently earns an income, but he makes occasional guest appearances on dyslexia awareness podcasts.
He was forced to quit as Health Secretary in June 2021 after being exposed for breaking his own Covid distancing guidelines in an office clinch with aide Gina Codelangelo. His business woes come days after a High Court judge green-lit plans for a libel case over claims he made a “malicious” comment about former Tory MP Andrew Bridgen online.
During a hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice, Mrs Justice Collins Rice said she believed there were “compelling reasons for further investigation at trial.” Hancock attempted to get the case thrown out, with his lawyers saying the claim did not have “a realistic prospect of success” and was not “properly articulated.” He previously said the case was “absurd” and labelled Mr Bridgen’s claims “ridiculous.”
The post Hancock is being sued over was published on Twitter – now X – in January 2023. The High Court previously heard Bridgen shared a link to an article that “concerned data about deaths and other adverse reactions linked to Covid vaccines”.
Bridgen, who was MP for North West Leicestershire from 2010 to 2024, wrote: “As one consultant cardiologist said to me, this is the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust.” Hours later, Hancock shared a video, captioned: “The disgusting and dangerous antisemitic, anti-vax, anti-scientific conspiracy theories spouted by a sitting MP this morning are unacceptable and have absolutely no place in our society.”
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