The boys recently starred in The Only Way Is Essexmas together
We’d like to say we watched the TOWIE Christmas special in its entirety and enjoyed it, but in reality, we probably only saw about seven minutes of it because we watched the whole bloomin’ 90-minute special hiding behind our fingers. And can you blame us? Awks.
We’re not saying The Only Way Is Essexmas is bad in any way – it was just cringe to watch (dare we say, too much drama?). When Joe Blackman and Junaid Ahmed walked into Girl Band’s festively-lit lion’s den hand-in-hand as Jordan Brook was singing… well, we don’t know. Our hands blocked out the rest and we're grateful to them for doing that.
In the seven minutes we actually managed to get through, we did catch glimpses of the festive battleground that was Saffron Lempriere's Christmas dinner party, Ella Rae Wise and Dan Edgar giving it yet another go, James 'Arg' Argent making a musical return and a fiery fave turning over a new leaf, opting to play cast peacemaker this festive season (he really was a friend to quite literally everyone during that Christmas special)...
Never in our wildest Essex dreams did we ever think we’d see FreddIe Bentley trying to dissolve a dinner party screaming match, but here we are.
And while we didn’t clock them interacting on screen in The Only Way is Essexmas, it seems that Freddie has even gone and made peace with former frenemy, Harry Derbidge, taking to his Instagram this week to tell his followers that the pair have since had ‘lots of conversations off screen’ and are ‘moving forward’ with their friendship.
Seriously, was Freddie visited by three ghosts the night before the Christmas party or what? Gemma Collins, Jess Wright and Bobby Norris, perhaps? Imagine how iconic that stage adaptation would be. Don't even worry about press tickets – we'll pay.
Anyway, Freddie launched one of his now iconic Instagram Q&As yesterday (a notorious TOWIE tea-spilling arena) and when asked to spill the latest on his turbulent relationship with Harry, he shared an unseen snap of the boys in matching green suits and wrote, 'Me and H have had a lot of conversations off screen, anything neggy that's happened between us has been left in the past and we've moved forward!
'We've known each other for a long time, since I was 14! Me and the girls was around his a few weeks ago having his famous chicken pasta. We even turned up to the Xmas special in a matching suit.'
It's a Christmas miracle.
Did Harry Derbidge and Freddie Bentley know each other before TOWIE?
Essex, honey - yes. And we sniffed out history between Harry and Freddie from the moment Fred made his TOWIE debut earlier this year.
At the time, we knew Ella's bestie/former The Circle star knew a fair few of the cast prior to signing his ITV contract, but according to Freddie (back then), Harry was majorly 'downplaying' their friendship and history (sorry, what?) and had been 'badmouthing' the then series newcomer, which of course, Freddie found out about ('cause Essex).
Freddie revealed, 'I’ve also known the likes of Harry for over ten years, although we have not been close. I used to work for him in Harry’s World – his little shop.'
At the time, we hadn't seen the boys share a scene on the show, and according to Freddie, Harry was making out that they hardly know each other. Awks.
Freddie told OK!, 'Harry downplayed our relationship with the whole cast.
'I do think he was a bit shocked I came on because I had to keep it a secret, but I don’t owe him that. Two weeks before he went to Bali he was round at mine having a takeaway, but he made out to everyone we didn’t have a friendship. That is yet to be tackled on the show but it will be. We’ve got a friendship but it is very distant, I think he feels threatened by another gay guy joining the show.'
Freddie concluded, 'I’m no wallflower and I’m a big character and I think it throws people. I am all about everyone winning so it is a shame because we could have had an amazing friendship, but I have heard he has been badmouthing me.'
