Downfall of noughties lothario Calum Best: Insiders tell DOLLY BUSBY how a humiliating incident at a London restaurant exposes the reality of his life now

On a frigid November night in 2006, a group of photographers waited outside London’s exclusive Cabaret Club.

They were centered around the infamous Kensington haunt where Hollywood A-list actress Lindsay Lohan and her on-and-off boyfriend are said to have partied.

When the pair emerged, teary-eyed and drunk, they got into a waiting car and sped off, but not before the dads caught the man in question: the smiling face of Lohan’s then-boyfriend and TV’s baddest boy, Calum Best.

Of course, the relationship didn’t last long, but even after 20 years of their relationship, many in the show business still marvel at how a ‘nobody reality star’ nabbed one of the most famous women in the world.

But back then, the only son of football legend George Best could get any woman he wanted with his blond good looks, dark hazel eyes and well-spoken manner.

Indeed he did so; The tattooed Lothario is said to have dated the likes of the late Girls Aloud star Sarah Harding, actress Donna Air – the one-time girlfriend of the Princess of Wales’s brother James – Essex’s Only Way star Chloe Sims and model Bianca Gascoigne, over the course of two decades.

But now, I’m told, the former Love Island contestant and Big Brother star (45) can’t seem to pin down a girl for more than ten minutes. I hear her date at a restaurant in central London left her before the cocktails arrived.

‘It looked like he went to the toilet,’ one of the spectators of the ordeal told me. ‘But then he never came back, just waiting there with the two drinks he’d ordered.’

Last year Best was named ambassador for over-30s matchmaking site Cherry Dating UK, where hopefuls fill out psychological questionnaires and are allocated hand-picked matches accordingly.

The couple left the club in tears and drunk

This comes after Best revealed on a podcast with Rylan Clark that he had only ever said “I love you” to the 44-year-old, despite his colorful dating history.

‘I wasn’t in love until recently,’ he told the presenter. ‘I was humbled for the first time… I met the girl last year and for the first time in my 44 years of life I felt like ‘This is what I’m looking for, this feeling I’ve never experienced before.’

‘For the first time I said ‘I love you’ from outside. We talked about having children. ‘We talked about having a family… Maybe I’m late to the game, but that’s my path.’

The unnamed woman moved to Los Angeles and the relationship ended, but Best insisted they were on good terms.

She also told Rylan, 37, how a stray cat taught him to say “I love you”.

He said: ‘A little skinny, frail thing with calm eyes. I named him Tiny. He’d show up, then he’d leave… then one night, about a month later, he’d show up, jump into bed, and spend the night.

‘This cat has opened me up to more love, I know it sounds stupid but I look at him and say ‘I love you’. I didn’t say this to my partner when I was 44, but I did say it to a cat… I look at this little thing and say, “Thank you for showing me this cute little tender love.”‘

Best first appeared on television in two series of ITV’s Celebrity Love Island in 2005 and 2006.

Here he established himself as a love rat; a reputation he would spend the next two decades trying to change.

However, during this time, his beloved father passed away from organ failure after years of alcohol addiction.

Reflecting on how this affected him, Best told Clark: ‘At some point during that period I gained that reputation [as a serial dater] I didn’t care about anything or anyone.

‘When my dad passed away, I remember literally saying ‘fuck everyone’ [mentality].

‘It was literally a shrugged-off attitude, really closed off, angry, not caring about anyone.

‘Some might say it’s an excuse, but that’s how I was affected when I lost my father. ‘It got to the point of ‘screw everyone else, I’m going to do what I want to do’.’

That same year, in 2005, the Celebrity Big Brother star met Girls Aloud star Sarah Harding at the Elle Awards show and the pair had a relationship that turned into an ‘eight-month spree’.

Calum also dated Girls Aloud star Sarah Harding… a relationship he described as “eight months of madness”

Calum is the only son of former football legend George Best and his wife Angie.

‘I was crazy, he was crazy,’ he said then, ‘That’s why we hit it off from the beginning.

‘Damn, we were going out every night; We were about to go crazy.

‘He was always so adventurous and it was one wild night after another. It was a whirlwind, an intense, full, fiery affair. But it was a good fire.

‘There was always great passion between us.’

She admitted that her relationship with the singer, who died of late-stage breast cancer in 2021 at the age of 39, was one of her “favorite memories” and spoke of a three-day romp with her.

‘We went to a spa in the countryside,’ he said, ‘And spent three days in our king-size bed – no TV, of course – plus the jacuzzi and steam room.

‘We didn’t even get dressed once and the only thing either of us wore was a spa robe and slippers. ‘This is one of my favorite memories.’

However, their relationship soured when Calum told the singer he wasn’t ready for something serious.

He moved on with Rod Stewart’s daughter Kimberly, now 46, and they were photographed embracing on the red carpet at London’s biggest events such as Fashion Week, the Elle Style Awards and club nights in late 2006, and although their romance cooled, they remained friends.

In 2006, he was seen with Mean Girls actress and ‘wild child’ Lindsay Lohan.

They were first seen together leaving the Cabaret Club in London that November night, and then kissed and frolicked at the sea together on a romantic getaway to the Bahamas.

A few months later, Lindsay, then 20, and Calum, then 26, were photographed kissing at a Nylon Magazine party in New York.

But the son of the late Northern Ireland and Manchester United footballer, who occasionally touched on the two-year relationship in his memoirs, Second Best: My Dad and Me, said the relationship was ‘some of the worst moments of my life’.

Best started dating glamor model Georgia Salpa in 2011, but dumped her after he was photographed partying with socialite Donna Air.

Calum has starred in reality TV series and met reality star Brandi Glanville on one of the shows.

Writing in the present tense, he wrote: ‘We are both flammable together. We’re both a little crazy at this point in our lives. We both love to party and that makes things boisterous.

‘I flirt with other girls when we go out. Sometimes in front of him and one day he catches me hanging out with another girl in my hotel room.’

The reality star was also caught having a ‘lewd’ night out with an escort after photos of her drug addict tryst were released.

‘One of me is wrapped in a towel, the other is snorting coke,’ he wrote. ‘I was caught on tape about drugs and prostitutes… I’m really, really screwed now.

We can easily say that your relationship with Lohan ends here.

In a 2010 interview, the Freaky Friday star dismissed their relationship, saying it “ended too quickly and wasn’t worth talking about.”

However, Calum went on to date glamorous model Georgia Salpa in 2011, but she dumped him after he was photographed partying with socialite Donna Air and reportedly returning to her flat late at night.

Two years later, the TV star admitted to cheating on Georgia after she repeatedly denied the accusations.

Talking about his relationship with the model, the actor said: ‘We hung out for a while. We were together for several months. We wandered around.

‘We went to Jamaica together. We had a great time together. But it didn’t really work, you know? Because I got caught cheating.’

Meanwhile, Georgia admitted she was ‘sad’ because the two were a ‘decent couple’ but added: ‘I can’t trust him, he says nothing happened and he wants to stay together.’

In 2016, he was rumored to be romancing Towie’s Chloe Sims after the reality star was photographed sitting on her lap at a charity event.

Both have kept quiet about the romance rumors but Chloe later referred to Calum as her “ex” in a press interview, hinting there was a romance brewing between them.

Later that year, Calum appeared on US dating show Famously Single and began a relationship with reality star Brandi Glanville.

Their romance was featured on television, but ended in a heated argument and separation just weeks later.

But it was this show that forced Calum to reflect on himself as he addressed his issues with drink and drugs.

He explained on Channel Five’s In Therapy: Calum Best that his addiction problems actually started after his father’s death in 2005, saying he was ‘snorting, drinking and overcoming everything’.

She later revealed that she ‘extricated myself from the situation’ and subsequently spent 10 years focusing on her health and wellbeing.

In later years, Calum was reportedly romancing another reality TV star, Love Island’s Megan Barton Hanson.

The dashing girl is said to have dated him before she rose to fame on the show.

She has since been trying to shake up her single status by appearing on dating shows such as Celebs Go Dating and Celebrity Ex on the Beach.

Calum said: ‘I’m doing this because I’m still single and in the hope of finding someone and in the hope that that person could be the one.’

It seems the search will still continue if people who might be ‘the one’ keep going to the bathroom half the time during their appointments…