So what does a billionaire business tycoon eat for breakfast? I’m sitting with Sir Richard Branson in his spanking new, 120-room Virgin Hotels London-Shoreditch, where I imagine they served him something delicious this morning. I am wrong.
“I went to E Pellicci in Bethnal Green, it’s a proper old East End restaurant,” he beams. “The welcome you get and the size of the breakfast is incredible. You should go there — 84-year-old Maria Pellicci still runs the kitchen — but you’ll need to go to one of our Virgin Active gyms afterwards.”
Looking svelte in a T-shirt, jeans, sports jacket and trainers, Branson doesn’t look like he over-indulges often. But the 74-year-old’s breakfast habits do sound odd. “I got carried away and I was dancing on one of the tables,” he reports.
Welcome to the upbeat world of Britain’s most famous businessman. We are meeting for coffee in Hidden Grooves, the bar of the new hotel. Sure, it’s another product in the brand portfolio which includes an airline (Virgin Atlantic), spaceships (Virgin Galactic) and which, at various points, has embraced everything from gyms to banks, trains, cola and even condoms.
But Hidden Grooves feels personal. It boasts shelves of vinyl for customers to play on the stereo but also memorabilia from Branson’s own past. He started Virgin records on a houseboat called the Duende which is still moored near Warwick Avenue Tube (you can rent it for £5,200 a month). Virgin eventually became the biggest independent record company in the world (until Branson sold it to fund his epic legal battle with British Airways in 1992) and the evidence is here.
“The picture over there is of me taking Janet Jackson up in a hot air balloon. I told her if she didn’t sign with Virgin I’d use her as ballast,” he chuckles. “Her first album sold 20 million copies so I was very glad she chose us.”
Next he spots memorabilia from another big Virgin signing: the cover of Sex Pistols’ 1977 album Never Mind the Bollocks. Branson, so often casting himself as the idealistic David taking on various establishment Goliaths, relishes the story of the court battle over the album title’s “indecency”. When the album cover was displayed in a Virgin record shop in Nottingham the owner was arrested.
“The powers that be decided ‘bollocks’ was a derivative of the world ‘balls’ so we got Reginald Maudling the QC and playwright [it was actually John Mortimer] to defend us. He in turn asked me to find a linguistics expert in Nottingham to argue that this wasn’t the case. He answered the phone and he said, ‘What a load of bollocks! The word has nothing to do with balls, it’s a nickname given to priests in the 18th century.’ So literally the album title should be Never Mind the Priests, Here’s the Sex Pistols.”
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Branson is charming, easy-going company. You don’t get a lot of eye-contact and his memory falters a bit but then again, he’s lived an extraordinary life so perhaps it’s hardly surprising some details escape him. Of course, now you can say “bollocks” no problem. However, the culture has become more judgmental in other ways. “Can someone pass me that Virgin logo artwork,” he instructs and a framed picture is removed from a high shelf. Together we inspect the very first Virgin logo: an erotic fantasy landscape featuring a naked teenage girl sitting close to some sort of dragon, created by artist Roger Dean in 1970.
A naked teen girl with a dragon. You could never get away with that now could you?
“No look, things have changed,” he says.
Over the years Branson has sometimes been taken to task for the role women have played in various Virgin promotions. Holding model Kate Moss in his arms to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Virgin Atlantic back in 2009 wouldn’t fly now. “There was a time when in order to sell newspapers the photographer always needed an attractive lady in it, but that’s not so prevalent today,” he agrees.
Losing Virgin Atlantic would’ve been like losing a child
Branson’s appetite for business is still relentless. Apart from the hotel, he has just launched three new Virgin Atlantic routes — from London to Toronto, Riyadh and Accra, Ghana. Undeterred by the demise of Virgin trains he is also planning a rival to Eurostar by 2030. Despite much negative publicity about how difficult Chancellor Rachel Reeves is making it to do business in London, Branson is bullish.
“I think that when you compare London and England generally to what’s going around the rest of the world, this becomes an incredibly attractive place for business. Especially compared to America. “We just launched a Virgin service to Toronto and the Canadians with one voice were saying, ‘We’re not going to America anymore, we’re coming to England.’ It’s the same with our new service to Saudi Arabia. Most of them are saying, ‘We’re not going to America, we’re coming to London.’ People love to come to the UK. There are some extreme elements in British politics but by and large there is stability.”
The Virgin brand has always prided itself on being modern and “with it”. Three years ago the airline unveiled gender neutral uniforms for cabin staff and claimed it was “the most inclusive airline in the skies”.
Richard Branson fact box
- Branson owns the luxury hotel brand Virgin Hotels, with properties situated all over the globe, most recently opening one in Shoreditch.
- Branson also owns Necker Island, a private island in the British Virgin Islands which he purchased in 1978 for around $180,000 - or $904,000 in today’s money.
- Virgin Atlantic Airways was founded in 1984 after Branson experienced such poor service on a cancelled flight that he chartered his own plane - the rest is history.
- He founded Virgin Galactic, a space tourism company, and flew to the edge of space himself aboard VSS Unity on July 11, 2021 and is now competing against the likes of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin in the space tourism race.
“Yes and to think when we set up Heaven nightclub people would come to us from Glasgow or Cardiff not being able to be open about their sexuality in their own cities,” he says (to be strictly accurate, Branson bought Heaven from founder Jeremy Norman who opened it in 1979). “I think the way Saudi Arabia is developing it’s going to become a massive tourism route for British people because the Crown Prince is opening the country up unlike ever before,” asserts Branson.
“Women weren’t allowed to drive until a few years ago — now they can drive. They weren’t allowed to show their faces, now they can show their faces. It’s changed absolutely dramatically in the past 10 years in a really positive way. And by us trading with it, it will change even further. They do have a balancing act: it’s the centre of Mecca and millions of people go there on religious tours to the Hajj every year and they want to be respectful of some of those people and their beliefs — and I think they are getting the right balance.”
Of course, Saudis and Canadians flocking to the UK (next year, he believes South Koreans will join them when he launches a route to Seoul) is a result of America becoming, for many, a hostile environment, with Branson recently describing Trump’s policies as “doing so much damage to the world” and “awful for everyone”.
We meet the day that Potus reportedly lambasted Amazon founder Jeff Bezos for taking issue with American government tariffs. Does Branson worry that speaking out means Trump might come for him too? “No, I’m actually just writing a blog today saying business leaders must speak out. Most importantly they must say science must win over politics. When politicians say that climate change does not exist and anyone who says it must be punished, you’ve got to stand up to something like that. The world must be ruled by proper science and we must not bow to anyone who is just ignoring science for political ends.”
Branson spends most of his time on 74-acre Necker Island in the Caribbean. London first-time buyers look away now: he bought it for $180,000 in 1978. Each day, he says, he plays tennis for three or four hours or he goes kite-surfing (he is a double world record holder) or cycling. “I’m pretty fit, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to fly to Tokyo, Toronto or Saudi — although our planes are of course extremely comfortable,” he says with a twinkle.
I notice an Oura ring on the smallest finger of his right hand. “Oh, if you can afford them then I think fitness devices are well worth it,” he advises. What metrics does he need to improve? “Sleep is always a challenge but I’ve learnt not to drink alcohol in the afternoons and I do decaf tea and coffee, and try not to eat late,” he says. “My wife calls my decaf a ‘Why bother?’ but it definitely helps with sleep.”
He is currently estimated to be worth £2.4 billion and as well as Necker he bought the neighbouring Mosquito Island for £10 million in 2007 (he famously gave Barack Obama kite-surfing lessons there after his retirement). Obviously he is a wealthy man but if you want to continue enjoying that toothy megawatt smile, don’t call him a billionaire. Why does he get so annoyed by the term?
“An artist like Mick Jagger is not known as ‘the billionaire Mick Jagger’. Why should anyone have their net worth as part of their title, I find it quite impolite. I create things and I hope that at the end of each year, the amount of wealth that comes in is greater than that which goes out, so I can create more things.
“I definitely don’t intend as a family to be worth large sums of money when I move on. And my family definitely don’t expect large sums of money when I move on. Money is there to be used to tackle problems in the world. Virgin Unite (his non-profit campaigning organisation) spends a lot of time tackling the big issues. Money is for that and for creating places like this new hotel which in turn creates jobs.”
You have to admire Branson. He’s friends with royalty and presidents, one of a group of campaigning global leaders called The Elders (Branson, Nelson Mandela and musician Peter Gabriel were founder members) yet this morning he was on the streets of London glad-handing strangers and giving away vinyl records to drum up interest in his new hotel venture. Even now when his PR tries to end the interview, he waves her away.
“No, three or four more questions, I love to disagree. I’m on a roll,” he says.
So you’re eventually going to give all your money away? “I’m not going to go into the details now but all I can say is the vast bulk of our wealth will be used to continue the work of Virgin Unite. They tackle things like the Global Commission on Drug Policy which advocates against prosecuting people for taking drugs rather than helping them; or supporting the Planetary Guardians who are defending disappearing species, rainforests and the ozone layer. These organisations need resources and it’s good for people who work for Virgin to know the bulk of their hard work will go to solving the issues of the world.”
I once interviewed John Lydon (formerly Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols) and he called his old boss Branson a “well-meaning old hippy”. From Lydon that’s high praise. And Branson does sincerely believe that big business can do good in the world. That explains why, during the Covid pandemic, when the Virgin empire took a huge hit, he was properly depressed for the first time in his life.
“Yes, I had maybe a couple of weeks of really understanding that depressing, low feeling and I now understand it in other people better,” he says.
I’ve learnt not to drink alcohol in the afternoons and I do decaf tea and coffee
What does Richard Branson do when he’s depressed?
“We wouldn’t have lost everything but losing Virgin Atlantic would’ve been like losing a child. That was what I was most worried about. The only reason Virgin Atlantic has survived 40 years is by being better than British Airways. When we started we had one plane, they had 300 but … we were the best. Then in the pandemic, 75 planes were grounded for 18 months. It needed hundreds of millions to save it and I’m glad we did.
“People love Virgin Atlantic and it’s doing as well as it’s ever done, and we are paying off those debts. But what do I do when I get depressed? I get my children and grandchildren around me and my mother would say, ‘Pull yourself together’, so I pull myself together. And [during the pandemic] with all the wonderful Virgin people, we fought tooth and nail to get through it and we did.”
Branson is dyslexic and has ADHD. Both went undiagnosed as a pupil at Stowe public school and as a result he was often written off as stupid. Worse, when he threw up with homesickness he was simply told to clean it up. In 2023 he told the BBC’s Amol Rajan he was sometimes beaten on his “bare arse” until he bled. Famously the then-headmaster predicted Branson would either end up in jail or become a millionaire.
London is an incredibly attractive place for business. Especially compared to America
But he was a schoolboy entrepreneur selling Christmas trees and budgies before launching a national magazine called Student aged just 15 (incredibly, Branson managed to commission French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre to write for it).
Now after involvement in over 400 businesses, befriending presidents and prime ministers, a total of 79 near-death experiences (they include hot air balloon crashes, sky-diving mishaps and bungee jump fails), he is thinking about the future. The problem is, he is Virgin. Might that be a handicap when he steps back and hands over the reins?
“That’s a polite way of putting it, thank you. My lifetime has been spent using myself to make sure people know about Virgin and I think it now stands on its own two feet whether I’m around or not. I think a brand benefits from having a face and my daughter Holly (currently Virgin Group’s chief purpose and vision officer) is a much more attractive face than I am, so when my balloon finally pops she’ll be sitting here rather than me. I think any organisation benefits from a face and not just being a corporate entity, so we will have a new Virgin face in years to come.”
In 2021 Branson took a flight in a Virgin Galactic craft ascending 53 miles above Earth (commercial flights on its new delta class craft begin next year at an expected $600,000 per seat). Cavorting about weightless, he made an emotional speech about children past and future.
Does he worry for his grandchildren, Eva-Deia, 10, Bluey, eight (by son Sam), and twins Etta and Artie, 10, and Lola, six (daughter Holly’s children)? “Every decade I’ve been alive the world has got better. I’m talking about Africa and the Far East, America and Britain. The world is progressing by and large in a very positive way. For example, gay rights and the rights of minority groups in Britain — we are this wonderful mix of black people, Indian people, Pakistani people, people from all over the world and nobody thinks twice about it. That’s one of the beauties of this country. There are obviously hiccups and what’s happened in America in the past four months has been — in my opinion — a step backwards; we’ve just got to hope that stability can come back to the world.”
Branson sinks his second decaf. He spots another record sleeve which means a lot to him: Mike Oldfield’s 1973 album Tubular Bells. Oldfield was an unknown multi-instrumentalist when Branson heard his music and took a punt. In fact, he created Virgin records especially and made it his first ever release. The album went on to sell 15 million copies.
“No one else would release his album, so we did and that got us started,” recalls Branson. “We still need that attitude today. Spot good ideas, invest and nurture them. This is a great country. If we do that it will become even greater.”
The first Virgin Hotel in London is open now, 45 Curtain Road, London
Cover photography: Mark Harrison
