Design museum takes tainted Sackler name off its library

The DESIGN Museum in Kensington has quietly removed the Sackler name from its library, becoming one of the last London institutions to distance itself from the American US philanthropic family.

The Sacklers have come under fire over the US opioid crisis, as a company owned by one branch created and sold the drug OxyContin.

A Design Museum spokesman told us: “Following discussions with our staff, visitors and the design community, the museum made the decision in April 2022 to remove the Sackler name from the Library.” Sackler money helped the museum’s move to West London from near Bermondsey in 2016.

The V&A removed Sackler from its courtyard last month, and the Tate, British Museum and National Gallery have also removed the name from buildings. Other galleries including Dulwich Picture Gallery have made similar moves.

Design Museum Director Tim Marlow told us at the opening for a new exhibition by designer Yinka Ilori recently: “They’ve not said they want the money back, they’ve just said take the name off”.

Watch out, Spielberg! Damian Hurley, 20, son of Elizabeth, has directed new short film The Boy On The Beach. Damian wrapped up the project yesterday, and thanked friends and family for their help in a post on social media with a series of photos. One snap has him holding a loudspeaker, while another has he and his mother, who also stars, looking into each other’s eyes. Damian paid tribute to “crazily talented” Elizabeth for flying in to film. “Your long-suffering mother loves you,” she replied.

CONTRARIAN actor Rupert Everett has made the case that gay people “have a harder time today” than they did in the Fifties.

In a BFI Q&A for film My Policeman, which stars Harry Styles as a secretly gay post-war officer, Everett said: “I think people were quite resilient in those days”, joking that he “came from those days” himself. He went on: “I don’t think people had a notion of themselves in the same way that people do now in terms of feeling bad about things.”

“The gay community was full of survivors and I think they drew a certain amount of strength from being survivors... I think they were ingenious and they found funny little sub worlds to make for themselves and they had a lot of humour and eccentricity so in one sense I think people have a harder time today than they had in those days”.

Some may disagree with him. Everett came out in the late 1980s, and his career has been seen as suffering as a result.

SERIAL Tory mischief- maker Michael Gove has revealed Liz Truss let him live in her grace-and-favour flat when she was foreign secretary. “Liz decided graciously not to occupy One Carlton Gardens... but to allow me to live there,” he told the Cliveden Literary Festival on Saturday. Gove was there after his split from wife Sarah Vine. It hasn’t won Truss much loyalty: Gove has opposed her policies as PM.

STARS came out for the last weekend of the BFI film festival over the weekend. Cate Blanchett wore a striking suit as she promoted a new version of Pinocchio. Director Guillermo del Toro was there too, with young star Gregory Mann. Emma Corrin wore a ‘goldfish in a bag’ dress to a showing of her film My Policeman, while Emily Blunt posed for new TV show The English. Out on the town last night were Edward Norton and a suave Daniel Craig for the sequel to the 2019 hit Knives Out.