Who’s who at the House of Guinness premiere: From Karl Lagerfeld’s muse to punk rocker once in a band with Osama bin Laden’s niece, meet the brewing family’s eccentric scions as they step out for Netflix drama

They were surrounded by British heartthrob actors like James Norton and Louis Partridge, but all eyes at last night’s House of Guinness premiere were on the brewing family’s real-life members.

Lady Mary Charteris, Daphne Guinness, Lord Ned Iveagh, Ivana Lowell, Jasmine Guinness and Celeste Guinness put on an eccentric group display as they posed on the appropriately dark-brown carpet at London‘s Picturehouse Central.

The story of their ancestors’ curse-filled lives is about to hit the small screen courtesy of Netflix‘s highlight anticipated period drama, set against the backdrop of 19th-century Dublin and New York.

But while viewers are about to become familiar with original characters behind the world-famous brewery, what are their descendants’ lives like now?

Lady Mary Charteris, who put on a very racy display as she flashed her underwear in a sheer black knitted dress at Tuesday night’s star-studded premiere, is for instance a successful model and DJ, and counts Cara Delevingne as her BFF.

The socialite, 38, is the youngest child of James Charteris and his first wife Catherine, who is the daughter of Guinness heir Jonathan Guinness, 3rd Baron Moyne. 

Meanwhile, Daphne, 57, daughter of Jonathan Guinness and Suzanne Lisney and granddaughter of Diana Mitford, who commanded attention thanks to her bold bouffant hairdo at the London event, has been a muse for several fashion designers. 

Showing just how varied the lives of the Guinness family truly are now, Celeste was once in an all-female punk trio with Osama bin Laden’s niece, Wafah Dufour. Read on to discover the vastly different lifestyles of the household’s eccentric descendants.

Lady Mary Charteris

Lady Mary Charteris has made a name for herself through modelling for the likes of Tatler, Vanity Fair and Vogue, and is now best known as a DJ and member of electronic rock band The Big Pink.

The socialite is the youngest child and only daughter of James Charteris and his first wife Catherine, who is the daughter of Guinness heir Jonathan Guinness, 3rd Baron Moyne. 

Lady Mary has modelled for the likes of Tatler, Vanity Fair, Vogue and Love, and is now best known as a DJ and member of electronic rock band The Big Pink. 

Her mother Catherine Guinness, of the Guinness dynasty, who was the daughter of Diana Mitford, once worked for Andy Warhol, and her father Jamie is the 13th Earl of Wemyss and 9th Earl of March. As a teenager, the Earl was Page of Honour to the Queen Mother.

As a child, Lady Mary was educated at Francis Holland, an all-girls private school in west London, which counts Poppy and Cara Delevingne and The Ecclestone sisters among its alumni.

It was in her teens that she got into modelling after being introduced to the world famous agency Storm Models by the magazine editor and fashion muse Isabella Blow, who was an old family friend.

In her early twenties, Lady Mary met Robbie Furze from the band The Big Pink and the couple quickly became joined at the hip. Soon she was joining the group on their tours, selling T-shirts and helping with lighting.

Then in 2012, the couple married at her family estate in Stanway in Gloucestershire, in a bespoke Pam Hogg dress that featured cutaway panels to below her belly button.

Since then Lady Mary has become a permanent fixture in the Big Pink, replacing bandmate Dave McCracken when he left – Robbie wanted a female singer on some tracks and, having heard Mary sing in the car one day, suggested she have a go.

Once known as a wild party girl, the model/DJ/singer/IT Girl, who is mostly based in Los Angeles with her husband, has been sober for years.

Like many other grown-up society beauties, Lady Mary spent part of the Covid pandemic in the UK at her father’s estate of Stanway House, in Gloucestershire.

She welcomed her daughter Wilde Jessie Furze on May 21 2021 and is often snapped soaking up the sun on glamorous getaways.

Daphne Guinness

Daphne Guinness, 57, who was a muse to the late designer Karl Lagerfeld, is the daughter of Lord Moyne and granddaughter of the late Diana Mitford. 

‘My grandmother was the closest thing I had to a mother,’ the brewing heiress previously said of Mitford, the socialite who married Fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley. ‘I loved her, and I have an uncanny resemblance to her physically.’

Guinness suffered at school because of her connection to Mosley, who was imprisoned after the outbreak of World War II.

‘I was pulled into a trap by my history teacher,’ the style icon said. ‘She announced to the class that I was related [to Mosley]. I was 13. I was bullied forever from that minute onwards.’ 

She spent childhood summers in Cadaques, Spain, with the artist Salvador Dali as a neighbour, but was brutally attacked at the age of five and taken hostage by Tony Baekeland, a violent schizophrenic, in her parents’ house in Kensington, west London.

Baekeland – whose mother was friends with her own – broke into the house and put a knife to her throat, dragging her out into the street. 

Though the housekeeper eventually spotted her and intervened, it marked a very narrow escape for Daphne as Baekeland went on to kill his mother the very next day. 

After spending time in prison, he then stabbed his grandmother in America and died by suicide – again while behind bars.  

Though not close with her parents, Daphne was understandably rocked when she discovered her father had a second family with another woman, and her mother’s death from cancer in 2005. Daphne would also lose her half-brother Jasper from the same disease in 2011. 

Daphne’s career began with a day job as a fashion stylist, featuring in Tatler, later establishing herself as a great English eccentric — with the budget to buy couture and an eye for style and art. 

The Guinness heiress has lived a wild life in the circles of high fashion, with her closest friends including Kate Moss and American photographer David LaChapelle. 

But loss would impact the friends she made through her career too, as her best friends fashion director Isabella Blow and the designer Alexander McQueen both took their own lives. 

Formerly married to Greek shipping heir Spyros Niarchos, with whom she has three children, Daphne later embarked on a passionate love affair with Bernard-Henri Lévy, the dashing philosopher who was still married to his third wife, Arielle Dombasle, an actress and singer.

Guinness received a musical mentorship from David Bowie and has released her fourth album, to acclaim from critics. The album is called Sleep.

Ivana Lowell

Ivana Lowell, 59, is the daughter of novelist Lady Caroline Blackwood and granddaughter of one of the ‘golden Guinness girls’ Maureen, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava.

It was her who came up with the idea for the House Of Guinness, after being inspired while watching Downton Abbey to tell her family’s own ‘juicier and more interesting’ story.

She wrote a 20-page television treatment of the story of her ancestors, which has now been brought to the screen by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight.

Speaking to The BBC this week, Ivana explained that she had created the character of Sean Rafferty, a handsome brewery foreman played by James Norton, to provide ‘the conflict and the passion that makes a story interesting’.

She explained her desire to do her ancestors justice, admitting: ‘I didn’t want them to be villains, but any business person has to be ruthless, especially in those times.’

But she also insisted that today’s Guinness family were not bothered by her airing the dirty laundry of their predecessors, saying: ‘We are not high and mighty about our reputation, we have a very good sense of humour about ourselves’.

Speaking about working with Ivana to create the gritty eight-part series, Steven gushed: ‘Ivana is an absolute mine of information and untold stories about the family going back years. 

‘Meeting her was the best bit of research imaginable because you didn’t just get the stories, you got the [family] confidence, and the spirit and the slight madness… I was hooked.’

The New York-based heiress recently insisted that she never felt like a ‘toff’ growing up and she didn’t have a ‘snobby’ upbringing.

Speaking to Mr Knight, the writer of the upcoming Bond film, and Radio Times, she said: ‘Growing up, I never felt that we were toffs. I hate that word! 

‘I thought we were like the poorest people ever. My mother didn’t like cars, so we’d have the most beaten-up old thing and my friends at school used to make fun of me.’

She added: ‘I was embarrassed when my mother picked me up from school. And she felt the same way about her mother picking her up from school.’

She continued that, contrary to common perception, many in her family were ‘outsiders’ and ‘married men with titles’ in order to feel ‘accepted’ by society. 

Her grandmother, especially ‘didn’t really like the Guinness thing’ and saw it as a ‘sort of beer’.  

Lowell, whose daughter Daisy, 26, with her ex-husband, interior designer Matthew Miller, now works in real estate, has written two memoirs about her life – Why Not Say What Happened? – and is in the process of writing a second. 

Jasmine Guinness

Daughter of Patrick Guinness and Liz Casey, Jasmine Guinness, 48, is a designer and fashion model, having appeared in campaigns for the likes of Armani.

She has designed for Oli.co.uk as well as Very.co.uk. Taking on the latter role in 2009, she said: ”I have always loved clothes and the opportunity to design my own line could not be missed. It’s a dream job.’

Throughout her early childhood she lived in a cottage in the grounds of her grandparents’ 12th-century Leixlip Castle, which played host to stars such as the Rolling Stones.

But Jasmine, who also co-founded a toyshop in London, has insisted she hasn’t got the ‘mentality of an heiress’.

Speaking to The Guardian in 2009, Jasmine said: ‘I’m very proud of the family name. It can be really helpful sometimes and I’m happy to use it shamelessly if I’m asking favours for a good cause. But when I started modelling there was a lot of resentment.

‘As it happens, I grew up on a beautiful farm and my grandparents lived in this incredibly grand house next door. But I haven’t been brought up with the mentality of an heiress.

‘I’ve worked since I was 18. I have no trust fund and don’t expect anything. The truth is, there are so many of us now that there isn’t enough money to go around.’

Jasmine’s parents split when she was 12, and she decided to stay at her grandparents’ castle with them before moving to the British capital.

Celeste Guinness 

On Tuesday night, brewery heiress Celeste, 35, stole the show in a black satin suit adorned with Guinness-themed patches and safety pins and sporting a punk-style mullet.

Posing up a storm for the photographers, she then sent pulses racing as she opened her jacket to reveal part of her bare chest underneath for a daring look.

The musician was formerly a member of punk trio Deep Tan, fronted by Wafah Dufour, the eldest daughter of Osama Bin Laden’s half-brother Yeslam and his ex-wife Carmen.

Ms Dufour, who has denounced her uncle, the founder of the Al-Qaeda terrorist organisation, in the strongest terms, gigged in trendy London music clubs with the group.

The Guinness heiress played bass, while Melia Beaudoin, a French model, was on the drums.

Lord Ned Iveagh

In Ireland, the Guinnesses are the closest thing to royalty and Edward, the Earl of Iveagh, grew up at the family mansion, Farmleigh, in Dublin’s Phoenix Park, which was sold to the Irish state for £18.9million in 1999.

He was married to Reading-born interior designer Clare, Countess of Iveagh, for 20 years before she filed for divorce in February 2021.

The family, including their two children, had lived together at the magnificent Elveden Hall estate in Suffolk, where dramas including Netflix hit The Crown and the movie Eyes Wide Shut were filmed.

Edward, known as Ned, whose direct ancestor invented the stout in 1759, is said to boast a reputed fortune of more than £900million.

‘Clare and Ned were a great couple but she has been unhappy for several years and doesn’t feel their marriage has been a priority for him for a long time,’ a friend close to the couple told The Daily Mail’s Richard Eden in 2021. 

The couple declined to comment at the time of the reporting. 

The Earl’s 22,500-acre Elveden Hall constitutes the biggest farm in the country.

The farmland on the Elveden Estate was around 7,000 acres before it was cultivated by Irish philanthropist Edward Cecil Guinness, who was created as the Earl of Iveagh and Viscount of Elveden in 1919.

Rupert Guinness, the 2nd Earl of Iveagh, then remodelled the lands for agricultural use nearly a decade later, in 1927.

The estate puts its large acreage down to crops, including kidney vetch and buckwheat.

In a statement on the estate’s website, Lord Iveagh says: ‘Elveden is a world-class producer and purveyor of local and regional food excellence. 

‘Our reputation for wildlife conservation, in harmony with our farming practices, make Elveden an obvious choice for food with a unique story.’