Sir Benjamin Slade has done everything from place a newspaper advert, to use tinder and even a reality TV show to help find him a wife that will give him a male heir – but it looks as though his search is over
While many people take to dating apps for the odd date or a quick fling, one pensioner has taken to Tinder to find something much more long-term.
The 79-year-old multi-millionaire Sir Benjamin Slade set out for the search for a much younger woman, who he so charmingly puts it will be a “good breeder” to have a son who will inherit his massive 1,300 acre Somerset estate.
Having previously placed a newspaper advert for a wife to provide him with two sons, Sir Benjamin’s more modern techniques were captured on the Channel 5 show “Millionaire Age Gap Love”.
Sir Benjamin was born back in 1946, throughout his eight decades , he has been previously married, but childless. And so, he went on the search for a wife once again.
Speaking on the show, he said: “I don’t think I’m too old to have children because I have a nine-month supply frozen in a sperm bank and I can use that.
When one of his staff showed him Tinder, they soon created an account, although with a cheeky lie about his age, “knocking a few years off” to show him as 56, he began the search.
As he began swiping through, he was less than excited about the women around him, with comments like “on no she’s dreadful” and “oh no I don’t like that,” and when it comes to age, Sir Ben was just as picky.
The businessman and self-publicist once justified his search for women three to four decades younger than him by saying: “You want a new car, you get a new car, not some old banger.”
Finding one profile of a woman in her 50s, he decidedly said: “She’s 58, that’s a bit old for me. Can we change the ages to under 40s?”
Although after a few more failed swipes, the Baronet decided that it wasn’t his scene, adding: ”They could be ladies of the night for all I know.”
After the show wrapped up, it seemed as though all of Sir Benjamin’s dreams had come true. The Daily Mail reported he was to marry American poet and composer Sahara Sunday Spain, 46 years his junior, with a baby on the way.
But what was set to be a fairy tale ending, if you can ever call it that, turned into a nightmare. Not one but two weddings organised by Sahara were cancelled at the last second by Sir Benjamin.
As for his child, the 7th Baronet’s search for the 8th is set to carry on as the baby is a girl, creating an “awkward situation” according to a friend. Despite his decade-long search for a suitor and a family, Sir Benjamin seems to have no interest in his daughter.
In 2022, it was reported he’d never even set eyes on his child, who now lives in France with her mother in their family’s extravagant 16th-century chateau. Having met through an elite co-parenting agency and the successful run of IVF, Sahara now describes Sir Benjamin as “utterly shameful”.
She added: “I know Ben wanted a boy, but he didn’t know the sex of the baby when he cancelled our second wedding. Would he have had a change of heart if I’d have had a son? Only Ben knows that. But he has no interest in meeting Violet. His behaviour is devastating.”
It seems to a degree that karma has caught up with Sir Ben, as despite his acknowledging paternity, the future of Maunsel House looks set to move out of the family.
Sir Slade is said to be working out a deal with an upmarket hotel group to take over the huge estate, although he has been assured he’ll still be allowed to visit his ancestral home – even if he does have to pay.
