A multi-millionaire has welcomed his seventh child as a gay dad and said they are going to be “best-dressed baby".
Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, 52, announced the birth of 7lb 13oz Romeo, his second baby with his 26-year-old fiance Scott. The couple live in a £10m mansion with Barrie’s ex Tony, the dad of his five other children. Barrie who became Britain’s first gay dad in 1999, also has a son called Colin from a brief heterosexual relationship when he was younger.
He told the Mirror : “We are so excited to announce we have a new member of our family. I love being a dad more than anything. It has been almost two years since our youngest Valentina was born. With the age difference between her and the other children, we felt it would be unfair to not have at least one more to grow up with her.”
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Romeo has already been spoilt with Barry claiming his daughter, Saffron, has already spent “over £10,000 on baby clothes for her new brother and a Versace stroller for £3,700”. Romeo’s first outfit is a "newborn baby Gucci" which Scott bought to go along with the rest of the “substantial selection of Gucci and Burberry and many other designer brands” in Romeo's wardrobe.
Barrie described the lead-up to Romeo’s birth as being “nerve-wracking to say the least”. The businessman said: “Over the past two months we have been in Japan setting up a new clinic for our clinical research company. We were just waiting for the call to come in saying he had been born or the surrogate had gone into labour, but fortunately, she did not.
"We arrived in San Francisco three days before the due date and ended up sat tapping our fingers. But there’s always a silver lining and we are in San Fran, the home of every designer shop under the sun. In fact, we shopped non-stop for a week. So since we had Saffron and Aspen with us, we have splashed out on a ‘welcome new baby’ shopping spree and treated ourselves too."
Barrie's ex, Tony, 56, along with his new partner Brent, plan to use the same “fantastic” surrogate mum who Barrie and Scott used. The couple will mix up their sperm so it is unknown who the biological dad is – just like Barrie and Tony did. The children will all be brought up under the same roof in the San Francisco home which boasts a huge swimming pool. They are also having a £6m mansion built in Essex, with a huge underfloor aquarium. The pad will house Barrie’s extensive Faberge egg collection and a £5m art collection.
Barrie said: “Our surrogate has agreed to help Tony and his boyfriend Brent to have a baby together too. We all love being dads and we are so excited to be doing it again. (Romeo’s) birth was a worry as they tried to turn him as he was in the wrong position and we ended up having to have a caesarean. I don’t think I could do this again.”
Barrie and Tony, who are worth an estimated £175m thanks to their medical company Princeton Consumer Research, went to court after their eldest children Saffron and Aspen were born. They won the right to be named as “parent one” and “parent two” instead of mother and father on the birth certificate.
In 2004, they welcomed Orlando, now 18, and in 2011, twins Jasper and Dallas, who are now 11. Barrie and Tony separated in 2019, and shortly afterwards Barrie began dating Scott. The couple, who are planning a lavish wedding in the next year, had Valentina in 2020. They had originally planned to apply to also have Tony named on Romeo’s birth certificate, becoming Britain’s first “throuple” parents. But now Tony and Brent will be godparents instead.
Barrie said his whole family was looking forward to meeting Romeo. He said: “All my older children are excited about the new arrival. I always wanted a large family and I feel that finally, I have one. My first text, as soon as Romeo was born, was to Aspen and Saffron as they were waiting with Valentina in the hotel, but the first call was to Tony. I always keep him in the loop. He loves being part of it. He is my best friend and the man I trust the most in the world. He was the first person I spoke to after the birth and he was so pleased for Scott and I.
“I will always love Tony and thank him for the time we had together. And first and foremost being dads who are both there to bring up our children is our priority. So while it may seem unconventional to some, we see ourselves very much as a family. We love our kids, and it works.”
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