Days after his wedding to Reinaldo Avila da Silva, Peter Mandelson wrote a heartwarming article for The Times explaining why ‘after 27 unmarried years together’ they had decided to tie the knot.
‘Trying to retain our privacy has been a failure,’ he said. ‘So I am delighted to make it a glorious failure, by declaring our love publicly through marriage. There is nothing to hide so why create the impression there is?’
It was October 2023, and the wholesome celebration at Old Marylebone Town Hall, attended by both Tony Blair and Sir Keir Starmer, marked the culmination of a very modern political love story.
Mandelson, 72, had met his 52-year-old spouse on a holiday to the Caribbean in the mid-1990s. At the time, he was the 40-something MP for Hartlepool, a blue collar seat where homosexuality remained taboo. Da Silva was a fresh-faced linguistics student in his early 20s who had recently moved to London from his native Brazil.
Their relationship endured through a tumultuous career, surviving a controversy that saw Mandelson ‘outed’ as gay by Matthew Parris, journalist and former Tory MP, in 1998 during the early months of the New Labour government, plus each of the grubby scandals that forced his first two resignations.
Reinaldo became one of the few constants at the Labour Svengali’s side as he gained prominence in public life, serving as EU Commissioner for Trade, before executing a glorious return to the Cabinet under Gordon Brown prior to the 2010 election.
While only rarely appearing in public, his presence endured throughout the decade Mandelson then devoted to enriching himself in the grubby worlds of finance and lobbying.
And now, as the ink dried on their marriage certificate, he could look forward to a new life in Washington as the official consort of the British Ambassador. The couple’s border collie Jock (who had also been at the wedding ceremony) completed the household as they settled into the capital city of Donald Trump’s America.
Days after his wedding (pictured) to Reinaldo Avila da Silva in October 2023, Peter Mandelson wrote a heartwarming article for The Times explaining why ‘after 27 unmarried years together’ they had decided to tie the knot. It marked the culmination of a very modern political love story
Yet in the murky arena of politics, appearances are all too often deceptive. So it has, of course, proven during the Labour power couple’s (pictured) fall from grace, which this week resulted in their links to Jeffrey Epstein dominating the news bulletins
The Epstein Files, published just over a week ago, have placed the couple at the centre of the most explosive political scandal since Profumo. Pictured: Mandelson, left, with Epstein, right
Yet in the murky arena of politics, appearances are all too often deceptive. So it has, of course, proven during the Labour power couple’s fall from grace, which in September saw them sent home from Washington – and this week resulted in their links to Jeffrey Epstein dominating the news bulletins.
If recent days have demonstrated anything it is that – contrary to the ‘glorious’ picture he painted for readers of The Times – Mandelson and his husband have for years had an awful lot to hide. The Epstein Files, published just over a week ago, have placed the couple at the centre of the most explosive political scandal since Profumo.
What emerges – when it comes to personal matters – feels strangely tragic.
Mandelson, the Prince Of Darkness famed for his skills as a political manipulator, turns out to be the victim of spectacular emotional manipulation in his private life.
At home, the swaggering statesman has felt trapped in a relationship that appears to be regularly tumultuous. While outwardly shrewd and self-confident, Mandelson comes across as weak and emotionally vulnerable in his domestic affairs.
At one point, in 2011, Mandelson went so far as to tell Epstein he was in ‘basically an abusive relationship,’ mournfully complaining that Reinaldo was ‘so volatile in his moods and behaviour’.
During another ‘real bust up,’ when he was Gordon Brown’s de facto deputy Prime Minister, Mandelson described his boyfriend as: ‘Self-obsessed, absorbed by whatever is absorbing him, unable to accommodate me or anyone else.’
He confided to Epstein that, during a row, Reinaldo had ‘said he needed £500 for household needs. Why doesn’t he go out and earn some? Am I going to have to face this for the rest of my life?’
The picture of Mandelson that emerges, from hundreds of intensely personal emails shared with the billionaire paedophile, is often needy and despairing.
Flashpoints between the couple revolve around two principal bones of contention: money and sexual infidelity.
On the first front, Mandelson frequently complains that his young Brazilian life partner, who appears to have dropped out of a succession of university courses and professional training programmes, has barely done a day’s work in his life. He frets that their relationship hinges on cash rather than romance.
‘He [Reinaldo] needs to run something and get some income from it because I do not feel he is a student anymore, if he ever is,’ Mandelson told Epstein during one such crisis. ‘What to do???’
Epstein seemed to agree: he advised ‘Petie’ to finally call time on the relationship. ‘I’m sorry, but as you enter the springtime of your senility, I think you are in need of a co-pilot to help fly and navigate through ever more uncertain weather, rather than an eternal passenger, who continues to bring on just one more carry-on and complains about the lack of space, quality of the journey, and smell of the loo.’
The correspondence is meanwhile peppered with references to Reinaldo finding out about various extra-curricular love affairs Mandelson has pursued, or intends to pursue.
In March 2010, for example, the Labour peer told Epstein: ‘I have had v bad setback with R who has somehow got into my texts.’
In December 2013, Epstein reflects on introducing the British politician to Lars Christiaanse, a 39-year-old property executive, saying: ‘I told you you would find him cute… wannabe rich.’ Mandelson then asks: ‘And trustworthy? He seems a nice guy.’
What emerges from the tranche of documents is Mandelson (pictured with Reinaldo in an old photo), the Prince Of Darkness famed for his skills as a political manipulator, claiming to be the victim of spectacular emotional manipulation in his private life
The ex-peer (right) confided to Epstein (left) that, during a row, Reinaldo had ‘said he needed £500 for household needs. Why doesn’t he go out and earn some? Am I going to have to face this for the rest of my life?’
The duo then discuss a plan for Mandelson and Christiaanse to visit Epstein in Palm Beach. ‘He and I agreed we really want him to drive us both to PB to see you all but I don’t think R will wear it.’
Several years earlier, meanwhile, Mandelson appears to have enlisted Epstein’s help in getting a male acquaintance named Simone a job in London.
This fascinating exchange began in May 2009, when he asked the paedophile: ‘Can you call Simone again and talk to him about work options in London?’
A couple of weeks later, he again contacted Epstein saying: ‘I am worried about Simone who is totally despairing about getting to London. I am not sure what else to do. Any ideas?’
The financier replies that Mandelson ought to come out to New York to see the friend in question. ‘Do not lose the opportunity. Coming across people you really enjoy is rare. Don’t be lazy, get on a plane.’
It’s unclear whether such a visit occurs. However, the following month, Epstein tells ‘Petie’ that bringing the young man to the UK would risk a political scandal.
‘I’m rethinking the Simone issue,’ he writes. ‘With your new profile I’m afraid it’s asking for serious trouble. It won’t be kept quiet. Rinaldo [sic] will go ballistic. Fraught with danger.’
Mandelson’s apparent dalliances, especially on foreign jaunts, crop up regularly in the Epstein files. ‘Waiting to fly to Berlin,’ he told Epstein in 2010. ‘Upset cos lost the number of the Russian guy I knew there so no fun (again) for Petey [sic].’
A year earlier, Epstein sent Mandelson an email in which he various ethnicities of men who might be available in New York. ‘Brown? Cuban-american? Have you made any decisions?’ The then Cabinet minister replied that he was ‘desp for CuAm’.
There is further off-colour banter. When a climate protestor threw green slime on Mandelson, Epstein emailed to joke that he had ‘goo on your face, again!’
In truth, Westminster insiders have long known that Mandelson’s relationship with Reinaldo has, for a significant portion of their 30 years together, been ‘non-exclusive’ or ‘open’. This means that both parties have agreed to allow each other to enjoy occasional infidelities, provided they don’t form emotional bonds.
The couple’s relationship began via infidelity, acquaintances recall. For when they met, in 1996, Reinaldo was going out with another holidaymaker: Howell James, John Major’s political secretary.
James, who is the same age as Mandelson, was heartbroken to be dumped by the handsome young South American.
‘It was brutally cynical’ recalls an associate. ‘Reinaldo jumped from the bed of the right hand man of a Tory Prime Minister, who everyone knew was going down to heavy defeat, into the bed of a rising star of the next Labour government. It felt so opportunistic.’
Reinaldo’s existence in Mandelson’s life became public in 1998, when he was named as ‘Peter’s friend’ by The Sunday Express.
But they weren’t pictured in public together until 2000, when they attended a West End stage adaptation of The Graduate.
Mandelson’s apparent dalliances, especially on foreign jaunts, crop up regularly in the Epstein files. Pictured: An image which appears in the Epstein Files of Mandelson in his underwear speaking to an unknown person
Reinaldo’s existence in Mandelson’s life became public in 1998, when he was named as ‘Peter’s friend’ by The Sunday Express. Pictured: The couple in 2000
By then, Reinaldo had reportedly met The Queen, backstage at the Millennium Dome on New Year’s Eve, and been referred to in Parliament, where Tory leader William Hague once made a jibe about ‘Lord Mandelson of Rio’.
He’d also stayed at Chequers, where he was hosted by Cherie Blair on the night of Mandelson’s first departure from the Cabinet over an undeclared £373,000 home loan from Geoffrey Robinson, the Paymaster General.
Not long afterwards, Epstein came into their life. In 2002 he invited Mandelson to an intimate dinner party at his New York home alongside a motley collection of guests including Donald Trump, magician David Blaine and Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google.
Mandelson and his boyfriend then holidayed on Little Saint James, Epstein’s private island. Epstein’s former housekeeper, Cathy Alexander, once recalled that Reinaldo had got sunburnt ‘and whined about it like a baby’.
And in 2005, Mandelson was photographed in a Caribbean boutique with Epstein, wearing a Patek Philippe watch worth £21,000 and jovially trying on a white leather belt.
By now, the relationship with Epstein had become financial.
In 2003/04, documents in the Epstein files reveal that three payments totalling $75,000 (£55,000) had been sent to accounts linked to both Reinaldo and Mandelson.
Around this time, the couple sold a home in West Kensington – estate agent’s particulars revealed that they used separate bedrooms, with Reinaldo’s containing a large goldfish tank and Mandelson’s a 13ft walk-in wardrobe – and moved to an expensive property just off Trafalgar Square.
Mandelson’s career continued to flourish. After resigning a second time – amid claims he had tried to procure a British passport for the billionaire Hinduja brothers – Blair gave him a job as the EU’s Trade Commissioner. But Reinaldo remained an eternal student.
In 2005 he took British citizenship and enrolled on a three-year course at London’s Florence Nightingale School of Nursing, though again seems not to have completed it.
Relationship troubles briefly reared their head in 2005, when a Brazilian friend of Reinaldo named Sergio briefly joined them in the Trafalgar Square property in a curious menage a trois.
They spilled over again in 2007, when Reinaldo for a time moved to a rented flat near Covent Garden and was reported to have grown close to Lord Browne, the former chief executive of BP.
Then, we now know, came Simone, who appeared on the scene in early 2009. It’s unclear what happened to him. But by that summer, around the time Epstein was released from prison for soliciting prostitution from a minor, things between Mandelson and da Silva appear to have been back on track.
That August, Mandelson messaged the paedophile from Buckinghamshire where he, Reinaldo and Reinaldo’s mother Edmea were staying in a stately home belonging to member of the Rothschild banking dynasty. ‘It’s brilliant to be here and makes all the difference to me and R,’ he said.
Epstein responded by asking about their sex life. ‘Does the noise carry throughout the house? Where do you have a strictly private moment?’
In the ensuing days, there was a minor crisis: Reinaldo, who has an interest in spiritualism (he and Peter once took part in a voodoo ceremony in Brazil during which a chicken was sacrificed, allegedly to put a curse on Gordon Brown’s spin-doctor Charlie Whelan) had cooked up a scheme for a sort of alternative medicine and massage centre in London’s Farringdon. The prospect terrified Mandelson, who feared losing hundreds of thousands of pounds if the business failed.
The coupe weren’t pictured in public together until 2000, by which time Reinaldo had reportedly met The Queen, backstage at the Millennium Dome on New Year’s Eve, and been referred to in Parliament. Pictured: The couple at the Millennium Dome opening ceremony in 2000
He enlisted Epstein to phone Reinaldo and persuade him to abandon the scheme and instead train as an osteopath.
As part of that conversation, the paedophile agreed to pay da Silva’s tuition fees, too.
‘I talked him back from the edge. You owe me,’ Epstein wrote to Mandelson on August 24. ‘Osteopath school it is.’
In September, at least £10,000 was sent to Reinaldo’s personal bank account (Mandelson intervened to insist it is treated as a ‘loan’ to minimise taxes). But by the following March it had gone.
Shamelessly, Reinaldo then contacted Epstein asking for another cash handout. ‘I find it very difficult to be financially independent while doing the Osteopathy course as it demands really full-time dedication,’ read his message.
‘So, some months ago, I had to start asking Peter for money again for my own expenses which really is not easy for me! I woke up today and felt I could say this to you. I hope you don’t mind me coming back to you for some extra financial help.’
Epstein responded by putting the Cabinet minister’s boyfriend on a monthly stipend of $4,000 (£2,950), sent directly to his personal bank account. Police are now investigating this and other financial arrangements.
Just two months later, circumstances changed significantly when Labour lost the general election (on polling day, Mandelson had emailed Epstein saying, ‘We are praying for a hung parliament. Alternatively, a well hung young man’).
That development freed Mandelson to seek his fortune in the private sector. With cash soon rolling in, Mandelson could afford to indulge Reinaldo’s status as a kept man.
Da Silva became intimately involved in the interior decoration of his £8million, four-storey townhouse near Regent’s Park, and never did qualify as an osteopath. It’s unclear whether he’s had a paid job since.
The couple also took steps to buy a £700,000 flat in Rio de Janeiro, not far from Reinaldo’s childhood home.
Dubbing Epstein his ‘chief life adviser,’ Mandelson emailed about the Brazilian transaction saying: ‘I am minded to place ownership, once secure, in Reinaldo’s name and advice on this would be welcome.’
Epstein responded that he should take steps to clarify what would happen to the investment ‘if something happens to renaldo’ [sic] asking ‘do you get it or does his family?’
There are further messages in which the Labour peer discusses trying to dodge property taxes by setting up holding companies in Panama.
In October 2010, Epstein learned that Mandelson was at a reception in China, emailing to say: ‘After dancing with everyone at the party, hopefully you’ll take someone home.
‘STAY. You should move there for two years.’
Mandelson replied: ‘And meet a rich nice chinaman and live happily ever after… talking of which, have you permanently stopped the Reinaldo sub?! I may have to put him out to work on the streets.’
The Labour peer of course never did put Reinaldo out to work – on the streets or anywhere else. Instead, he ended up marrying him.
