Farage claim he bought £1.4m house with I’m a Celebrity fee under scrutiny

Nigel Farage is facing fresh scrutiny over his claim that he paid for his £1.4m house from a reality show fee rather than the millions gifted to him by a crypto billionaire.

Accounts for the Reform leader’s personal media company, Thorn in the Side Ltd, suggest that money was not withdrawn from the firm at the time of the house purchase.

The apparent discrepancy raises fresh questions about Farage’s transparency with regard to his finances. He is currently being investigated by the parliamentary standards commissioner over his failure to declare a £5m gift from Christopher Harborne, as revealed by the Guardian.

He claims that the gift was made to fund his security. But Farage bought his house in Surrey on 10 May 2024, only weeks after receiving the money from Harborne, a billionaire who has lived in Thailand for two decades.

Farage’s spokesperson had told the BBC last week that he paid for the Surrey property purchase with his £1.5m fee for participating in I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! in late 2023.

An analysis by the Financial Times raises questions about that claim.

Farage has previously said that his earnings from the reality show were paid to his personal media company Thorn in the Side Ltd.

Accounts for the company show its cash position increased from £300,000 on 31 May 2023 to £1.7m on 31 May 2024.

The accounts suggest that no dividend was paid out in the period and its cash position increased from £1.7m to £2m between May 2024 and May 2025.

Farage, rather than Thorn in the Side, bought the Surrey home and there is no mortgage on the property.

A Reform spokesperson said that the house was not bought with Harborne’s gift.

The spokesperson suggested that this was proved by the fact that anti-money laundering checks relating to the purchase were carried out before the gift was made.

The spokesperson said: “Nigel has multiple sources of income, as you can see from his parliamentary register.”

He did not respond to the question of whether the Reform leader stood by his claim that the money from the reality show was used to buy his home.

Farage did not register Harborne’s gift, which was made within 12 months of his election as the MP for Clacton, in his register of interests. He claims that this was not necessary as it was a personal donation.