CHANGING FACES
Where original Changing Rooms cast are now – prison stint after £50K cancer fraud to buying a zoo & surprise new career
Including who is set to take on a new challenge in a very testing Netflix series
A FAMILIAR face from the popular 90’s DIY show is set to return to our screens to take on a whole new challenge.
Interior designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen has joined the cast of Netflix Celebrity Bear Hunt which airs on Wednesday, February 5, 2025.
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known as Changing Rooms saw neighbours take over each other’s homes alongside a professional designer and carry out makeovers - with mixed results.
Back in the 90s it was hosted by Carol Smillie, and featured fan favourites Handy Andy Kane and Linda Barker.
Here we take a look at what the original cast is up to now.
From Changing Rooms to Celebrity Bear Hunt
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During his time on Changing Rooms, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen became as well-known for his loud suits as his daring designs and dubbed himself “the Pope of subversion” throughout his time on the show.
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Thanks to his sharp tongue, he became a huge celebrity in Asia and Australia as a judge on TV shows The Apartment and House Rules.
He admitted it took a bit of persuading to get him to return to Changing Rooms for their second series in 2022.
Laurence told The Sun: “I’ve got so used to these enormous shows in Asia, in Australia, in America.
"In Asia I’ve got 130million viewers and it’s all about my guyliner, and it’s all about my backlighting and it’s a huge crew. I don’t move without 300 people in an entourage.
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“Suddenly Changing Rooms is like live and acoustic. It’s literally like going back to having a concert above a pub again. It’s incredibly invigorating, even in my advanced age. I think that’s one of the reasons I said yes.”
Changing Rooms' Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen shaken by 'extraordinarily bad' reaction to new home makeovers
Laurence also featured in the BBC programme, DIY SOS: The Big Build that is set to return for a new season this year.
In 2024, the four-part series titled Outrageous Homes with Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen was a big hit amongst viewers with daring plans to renovate their homes.
In 2025, Laurence revealed he would take on a new challenge as a contestant in the Netflix reality series, Celebrity Bear Hunt.
Speaking to Times radio Laurence shared his wife’s reason when he told her he was appearing in the Netflix show.
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He said: “Jackie's extremely amused. She feels it's got midlife crisis written all over it, although, as I keep telling her, I'm too old to have a midlife crisis, this is more like an end of life crisis.
“She's actually, frankly, incredibly jealous. She would love to do it and has always been mildly irritated that no one's ever asked her to do something like this.
“Because she literally has always had in her handbag, a SAS Survival Guide, to get herself out of all sorts. I meant to bring it actually and again, how foolishly, I completely forgot.”
Laurence lives in the Cotswolds with wife Jackie. The couple have two grown-up daughters and three spaniels.
Bought a zoo
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Former model and fitness instructor Anna Ryder Richardson, was an interior designer by the time she came to Changing Rooms - and became known for some unique choices.
A standout moment was when she framed erotic French undergarments and placed them around one homeowner’s room.
On seeing the results, the contestant screamed and cried: "Why would I want this s**t in my room?! I've got children!”
Anna endured a stint in the jungle during 2007's I'm A Celeb, and in 2008 she fulfilled her lifelong dream of owning a zoo when she purchased Manor House Wildlife Park in Pembrokeshire for £1million.
This led to a load of TV series about her experiences looking after animals, including Chaos at the Zoo, Anna's Welsh Zoo and Wild Welsh Zoo.
Her teenage daughters Bibi and Dixie grew up "surrounded by gibbons, rhinos and tigers".
However, in 2012 she and her husband Colin MacDougall were charged with health and safety violations when a mother and four-year-old son were crushed by a falling tree.
MacDougall was fined £110,000 after a three-week trial - at a time when the couple had been living in a wooden cabin to save money to complete the rhino enclosure.
Anna has since admitted the "stresses and strains" of running the zoo are what ended her and Colin's 18-year marriage.
Anna presented on BBC Radio Wales but now lives in a farmhouse near the park and regularly posts updates from the zoo on her Instagram.
Imprisoned for £50k cancer fraud
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Elizabeth Wagstaff was one of the makeover experts on Changing Rooms, but she was handed a one-year prison sentence in 2000 after lying to many of her friends and colleagues about having terminal cancer in order to raise more than £54,000.
The fraudster said she needed the money for medical treatment in America, but used it to buy expensive food and designer clothes.
She took £13,000 from her then-boyfriend and large amounts from some of her Changing Rooms co-stars and producers, including Linda, Laurence and Anna.
Laurence - whose father died from leukaemia - and his wife Jacqueline had felt so sorry for Elizabeth, they even made her godmother to their daughter Hermione.
Elizabeth pleaded guilty to 14 counts of obtaining a money transfer by deception and four of obtaining property by deception.
Judge Quentin Campbell told her: "The nature of your deceptions was particularly cruel and unpleasant. There cannot be anyone in this court who has not had a friend or relative who truly does suffer from cancer or had died from that disease."
Surprise new career
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Carol Smillie hosted Changing Rooms from its start until 2003, won a National TV Award and Bafta nomination, and admitted she was disappointed not to have been cast in the reboot.
She went on to host Wheel of Fortune, but sparked controversy in 2003 when she admitted she cheated on a Mensa test that she took to prove game show hostesses aren't stupid.
From October to December 2006, Carol participates in Series Four of Strictly Come Dancing and finished in fifth place.
These days Carol has a very different job officiating weddings, naming ceremonies and funerals after becoming a humanist celebrant a few years ago.
Carol - who works under her married name Carol King - married her first couple in 2019.
The 60-year-old recently appeared on BBC's House of Games, and many viewers commented on her ageless good looks.
Reality TV star
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Aside from Laurence, Linda Barker was the most memorable designer in the original Changing Rooms line-up - mainly because she accidentally demolished a poor woman’s valuable collection of antique teapots when she built a floating shelf unit.
After the show ended in 2003, Linda headed into the I’m A Celebrity jungle and finished third.
She also appeared on celebrity diving competition Splash and won Celebrity Come Dine With Me.
Linda currently writes and publishes design books and has her own fancy kitchen range, as well as a line of paints. She also presents segments on Steph's Packed Lunch.
Linda and her former TV executive husband Chris Short, who share a daughter, recently relocated from London to the East Riding of Yorkshire.
Stateside move
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Cockney builder Andy Kane was always ready to do the DIY jobs that the contestants couldn’t handle - which led to him getting the nickname Handy Andy.
Once the UK show wrapped, Andy moved Stateside to work on the US version - called Trading Spaces.
He has also presented three shows for UK Style, Garden Rivals, Room Rivals and Streetcombers, as well as Increase Your House Price By Ten Grand.
On top of that, he has also hosted a number of BBC Primary Geography programmes since 2008.
He is happily married to his wife Geraldine and they have four children.
Keeping a low profile
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Graham Wynne was one of Changing Rooms' main designers from 1996 to 2004 and was often seen wielding fabric and a glue gun.
That was pretty much his only telly stint, bar a documentary - Now That's Embarrassing: The 80s - in 2006.
The interior designer, who previously worked as a creative consultant for Ralph Lauren, now keeps a low profile but did attend a Changing Room reunion in 2000.
Respected designer
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Designer and architect Michael Jewitt worked in telly for six years, doing four series of Changing Rooms as well as 23 episodes of BBC's Change That, and four series of Housecall.
He went on to design branding for companies including Gourmet Ireland, and design offices in London, France and Greece for luxury yacht makers Sunseeker.
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He's also restored Grade II listed buildings.
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