Tim Bell

The story of Bell's rise and fall was documented in the 2020 documentary film 'Influence' directed by Richard Poplak and Diana Neille.

An alternative view of what happened was published in The Drum on 5 September 2019. It stated Bell had a genuine desire to help the Indian-descended Guptas from being discriminated against in South Africa. However, Bell suffered a stroke in 2016 and was put on three months medical leave. CEO James Henderson used Bell's absence to ensure the account was run exclusively by his financial PR Team, under Victoria Geoghegan. Fake Twitter accounts were set up accusing white businessmen, such as Johann Rupert, of “white monopoly capital”. When Bell returned from medical leave, he had a row with Henderson telling him he had to resign the account and when he refused, Bell resigned from the company. After the story broke in 2017, Johann Rupert claimed Bell was “the only person to have acted with honour in the entire affair.”

In January 2017 the Huffington Post reported that Johann Rupert, CEO of Remgro and Richemont, ended an 18-year-old contract with Bell Pottinger due to their 'concerted effort on social and other media to discredit him'. Rupert had spoken out against state capture and called on President Jacob Zuma to resign “for the sake of our children”. As the Guptas back Zuma, Rupert asserted that Bell Pottinger painted him as the embodiment of white monopoly capital and as the counterweight to the Guptas and state capture, an example of how state capture allegedly worked under apartheid.

Bell Pottinger announced Lord Bell's departure as chairman to set up an advisory firm, Sans Frontières Associates, in August 2016. He retained a 7% stake in Bell Pottinger. Tony Walford, partner at Green Square stated, “Perhaps not coincidentally, Sans Frontières was the original name of the public relations firm he set up before it was renamed Bell Pottinger; it was also the name of the unit that handled the firm's controversial lobbying and consultancy work for the governments of countries such as Belarus and Sri Lanka.” A “leading PR figure” told The Times that his resignation from his own agency didn't come as a surprise, saying: “Ultimately, he did not fit with the kind of corporate image Bell Pottinger wanted to project”, in the end. Walford explains that, “there is big money to be made from representing governments and other entities, no matter how reviled they are. The problem is, this kind of activity sits increasingly uneasily with corporates keen on projecting a responsible image.”

Chime disposed of Bell Pottinger in June 2012 (while retaining a 25% stake in the business), when Bell also resigned as a director of Chime.

In late 2011, Bell's lobbying interests were investigated by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism for The Independent newspaper which reported claims that the company attempts to interfere with Google results to “drown” out coverage of human rights abuses, that his employees had altered English Wikipedia entries to create a better impression of clients and had easy access (via former Conservative MP Tim Collins) to the Cameron government and others overseas. Bell Pottinger, via a sting operation, were found to be willing to work for the authoritarian regime in Uzbekistan. Bell launched an internal inquiry, but believed he had been singled out for his connection with Mrs Thatcher.

Lord Bell, a friend of Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, handled the media attention behind poisoned Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko, who died in hospital 23 November 2006. The Bell Pottinger Communications agency distributed a photograph showing a hairless Litvinenko in his hospital bed. The PR Agency also offered advice to relatives of Litvinenko and his spokesman Alex Goldfarb.

Bell was knighted in 1991 after nomination by Margaret Thatcher, and created a Life Peer after nomination as a Conservative working peer as Baron Bell of Belgravia in the City of Westminster on 31 July 1998. He was often later seen on panels and current affairs programmes discussing the issues of the day, and was chairman of the Conservative Party's Keep the £ Campaign. He also served on various arts and public administration bodies. On 8 April 2013 it was Bell who officially announced the news of Lady Thatcher's death.

Bell advised Hernán Büchi, a former minister of the Pinochet dictatorship, in the presidential election of 1989. Büchi eventually lost by a large margin to Patricio Aylwin.

He left the Saatchis to join Frank Lowe and Geoff Howard-Spink in 1985 to have his name on the door at Lowe Howard-Spink and Bell where he served as deputy chairman. Later, in 1989 he bought out the PR division which became his own agency, Lowe Bell Communications, and he became chairman of Chime Communications in 1994 (which included the Bell Pottinger group).

In 1984 Bell was seconded to the National Coal Board to advise on media strategy at the start of the miners' strike. He worked on media relations and helped set the terms of the negotiations and course of government policy.

Bell was instrumental in the Conservative general election campaign victories of Margaret Thatcher and was seen as Thatcher's “favourite spin-doctor and confidante.” For her first 1979 victory, he developed the strategy for the 'Labour Isn't Working' campaign, created by Saatchi creative director Jeremy Sinclair and Bell advised the future Prime Minister on interview techniques, clothing, and even hairstyle choices. He also courted newspaper editors and worked on devastating attacks on the Labour Party.

On 19 November 1977 Bell was fined £50 for indecency. He had exposed himself while masturbating at his Hampstead bathroom window on 21 October in full view of female passers-by.

Bell was married three times: first, in the 1960s, to Suzanne Cordran (marriage dissolved in 1985); in 1988 he married Virginia Hornbrook with whom he had a son and daughter (marriage dissolved in 2016); in 2017, he married Jacky Phillips.

Tim Bell was born on May 6, 1952 in Horsham, Australia.

Timothy John Leigh Bell, Baron Bell (18 October 1941 – 25 August 2019), was a British advertising and public relations executive, best known for his advisory role in Margaret Thatcher's three successful general election campaigns and his co-founding and 30 years of heading Bell Pottinger.