Damian Hurley: ‘I grew up at the height of when the British paparazzi were evil’

Aged five, Hurley moved with his mother and her husband-to-be, businessman Arun Nayar, to a 400-acre organic farm in Barnsley, Gloucestershire, to live out a bucolic fantasy away from harassment. “It was honestly a really transformative time for me, my mum and my very sweet dad,” he says. “We hibernated. I used to take the little runt piglets into my bed and sleep with them, and we had cows, pigs, sheep, alpaca,” he recalls. When his mother won a role in Gossip Girl, Hurley went to boarding school — Summer Fields in Oxford — aged eight. “I know some people had a horrible time, but I loved it,” he says.