Not such a Hollywood hero! 90-year-old Eve Branson says Kate Winslet didn't save her from the fire on Necker Island but merely, 'picked me up and walked me down four steps'

  • The Caribbean island had a middle-of-the-night fire in August 2011
  • It was widely claimed that one of the guests, actress Kate Winslet saved Eve Branson from the fire
  • Eve tells The Obsever Magazine that her grandsons saved her life, not Kate

By Scarlett Russell

Published: 08:06 EST, 20 July 2014 | Updated: 10:57 EST, 20 July 2014


Eve Branson, the 90-year-old mother of billionaire Sir Richard, has denied being saved from an inferno on her son's private Caribbean island by film star Kate Winslet.

In August 2011 it was widely reported that Titanic star Kate had rescued Eve as she tottered down stairs at Necker Island, picking her up in her arms and carrying her to safety, after a lightning storm caused a huge blaze.

But, in an interview with The Observer Magazine today Eve dismisses the heroic act, saying that Kate only carried her down four steps and ‘that was it.’

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Rescue: Kate Winslet wraps her arm around Sir Richard Branson's mother Eve, after the fire from his blazing home on Necker Island in the Caribbean

Rescue: Kate Winslet wraps her arm around Sir Richard Branson's mother Eve, after the fire from his blazing home on Necker Island in the Caribbean

Actress Kate Winslet attends the Titanic 3D World Premeire at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England on March 27, 2012
Richard Branson pictured with his parents Edward and Eve Branson in Marrakech in 1996

'She did not save me!' Eve Branson, right with her billionaire son Sir Richard in 1996, claims that, contrary to wide belief, she was not saved by Kate Winslet when Richard's Necker Island was on fire in 2011

Alight: Sir Richard Branson's luxury home on Necker Island in the Caribbean, which was been damaged by a middle-of-the-night fire on Monday August 22, 2011

Alight: Sir Richard Branson's luxury home on Necker Island in the Caribbean, which was been damaged by a middle-of-the-night fire on Monday August 22, 2011

She said it was actually her grandsons that saved her.

‘It was the hurricane of hurricanes and we were on fire and we would have all been burnt alive if it wasn't for my grandsons,’ she said.

 

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‘It was four or five in the morning and they went around getting everyone out of bed.

‘I remember saying, “I'd better put my mac on,” because I wanted to cover up and Jack [Eve’s grandson] saying “No, not right now.”

‘I'd just about got outside and the rain was pouring down and I didn't have my contact lenses in, but I was making my way out and Kate and her two children were behind me.

‘She just sort of picked me up and took me down four steps and that was it.’

She said she was ‘a bit slow’ for Kate, who gave birth to her third child Bear in 2013 with hubbie Ned Rockroll, as she rushed away from the fire with her two children Mia and Joe.

 
Saved: Sir Richard Branson with his wife Joan, right, and daughter Holly, left, in 2011. The family escaped unhurt after a middle-of-the-night from the Necker Island fire, as did Richard's mother Eve, who has said her grandsons saved her, not Kate Winslet

Saved: Sir Richard Branson with his wife Joan, right, and daughter Holly, left, in 2011. The family escaped unhurt after a middle-of-the-night from the Necker Island fire, as did Richard's mother Eve, who has said her grandsons saved her, not Kate Winslet

Paradise: Necker island in the Caribbean, owned by Sir Richard Branson, costs £1,000 per person per night

Paradise: Necker island in the Caribbean, owned by Sir Richard Branson, costs £1,000 per person per night

Sir Richard Branson, who is worth nearly £4bn, owns the luxurious Caribbean island. The entire island operates like a resort and can accommodate up to 28 guests.

Sir Richard, 61, was staying in a villa about 100 yards away with his wife Joan and son Sam, 25, when the fire took place.

However Holly, 29, Kate and her family were staying with Eve in the Great House, which was burned to the ground.

The Virgin tycoon praised Miss Winslet for helping his mother to safety, and described the actress's children Mia, ten, and seven-year-old Joe as 'two of the bravest kids I've ever come across'.

Eve Branson previously said how she, ‘would have got down those stairs all right on my own,’ and that Kate only picked her up because she was worried about her own kids.

Eve said: ‘I think she was worried that I was holding up her children, so she picked me up and carried me.’

As reported in The Observer Magazine, Eve has been running the Eve Branson Foundation in Morocco for the past 16 years, helping local women in the villages of the Atlas Mountains to set up sustainable enterprises making craft items for sale.

‘I'm completely in love with Morocco,’ Eve told the magazine. ‘And these women, they've never really had the chance to make their own money. Up to the time I took them on, they had nothing - not even transport, they couldn't get anywhere.’

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Kate Winslet is hardly milking this or needing it to further her career, so why is this old bat whining on? (seen her on Jonothan Ross show, she was vile!) - bet she would like to carry her back up more steps!

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Even Kate has said the rescue was greatly exaggerated by the press.

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thats why you never let stargners into your house!!

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Eh ?!

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I really don't like Kate Winslet, but to be fair to her, I don't think she has ever pretended to do more than Branson's mother said anyway. It is the media who have pumped up her account of the night.

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Well, it was YOU DM that speculated about Kate saving her. Now you want to blame HER for lying

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Has each of Kate Winslets husbands been wealthier than the last?

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At the end of the day all you lot are doing is attacking an ancient old lady who's simply putting it like it was, what's the matter can't you's handle the fact that a working class person never saved the day getting her out of bed after all and it was just made to look like that due to a clingily posed picture?

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she is 90,maybe she is senile,who knows?

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Hmm seems a bit catty to say the least...yet with the older generation it's always the younger ones with ill manners and a bad attitude. She could have just pushed you out the way...

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Older people are amongst the rudest I know. My mother, for example, uses her walking stick as a lethal weapon, it's really embarrassing having to apologise for her knocking people out of her way.

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Typical media to make a mountain out of the rescue and exaggerate ,this woman should write a book on how to raise children,we have too many scroungers.

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