10 Things You Didn’t Know about Euan Blair
Twenty years ago, Euan Blair was best known as the gawky teenage son of former UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair. These days, his fame and fortune are in danger of eclipsing his dad’s thanks to Multiverse, an education and employment-themed startup that aims to transform the education system by encouraging school leavers to turn their backs on higher education and embrace apprenticeships instead. His novel approach to education is clearly working, with the latest figures suggesting that over 100,000 youngsters have applied for an apprenticeship using the service. Learn more with these 10 things you didn’t know about Euan Blair.
1. He grew up on Downing Street
UK addresses don’t get much more famous than No.10 Downing Street, and for good reason. The house is home to the British Prime Minister, a title currently held by Boris Johnson but previously held by Tony Blair. To his supporters, Blair is the man who took the Labour Party back to power for the first time in generations. To others, he’s the man who helped broker the Good Friday Agreement and bring an end to the conflict in Northern Ireland. To his critics, he’s the man who tainted his legacy with the 2003 invasion of Iraq. To Euan, he’s probably a lot of things, but primarily, he’s just Dad.
2. He’s had a brush with the law
He might be an MBE, head of a billion-dollar start-up, and all shades of respectable these days, but back in the day, Blair was a typical teenager with a typical teenager’s disregard for rules. But whereas most people’s teenage mistakes don’t make the papers, Blair’s did. Aged 16, he got pulled in by the police after being found ‘drunk and incapable’ in Leicester Square while out celebrating his GCSE results. To make matters worse, he initially gave the police a false name and address, as well as claiming to be 18. Soon enough, his true identity came out, leading to a lot of red faces at Downing Street and a very public apology from Blair. The scandal was made all the more embarrassing by the fact his father had only recently called for police to be given the power to clamp down on drunken youths with on-the-spot fines.
3. He’s an MBE
In the 2022 Birthday Honours, Blair was awarded the title of Member of the Order of the British Empire for education services. The honor came just six months after his father was made a Knight Companion of the Order of the Garter (KG), a controversial move that triggered a petition for the title to be removed in view of his role in the Iraq war. To date, the petition has garnered over 1 million signatures.
4. He’s married
In his early 20s, Blair was linked to several eligible bachelorettes, including former Member of Parliament, Luciana Berger. In 2013, he took himself off the market for good when he married his long-term girlfriend, venture capitalist Suzanne Ashman. Despite Blair being raised as a Catholic, the couple married in an Anglican ceremony at All Saints’ Church in Wotton Underwood, Buckinghamshire.
5. His parents gave him a leg up on the property ladder
Having a Prime Minister for a dad and a successful lawyer for a mother can come in handy. While most 30-somethings are still struggling to come up with the deposit for a home, Blair got a big leg up on the property ladder when his parents bought him a £265,000 as a student. If that wasn’t enough, they also bought him a second home to rent out. These days, he lives in a £22m five-story townhouse in west London that, among other things, boasts an ‘iceberg basement’ with a swimming pool, a gym, seven bedrooms, and a vehicle lift to transport cars to the underground garage.
6. He’s on track to becoming a billionaire
As Tatler notes, while most Millennials have had to accept they’ll never be as financially comfortable as their parents, Blair is proving the exception to the rule. When his education start-up Multiverse was valued at £1.35 billion after its latest funding round, Blair, who owns at least 25 percent of the company, suddenly saw his personal wealth skyrocket. According to estimates, he’s now worth around £337 million – a vast amount more than his father at $48 million.
7. He served as an intern in Congress
Although he’s made his millions by providing a viable alternative to university, Blair has several degrees to his name, including a BA in Ancient History from the University of Bristol and a master’s degree in International Relations from Yale. After graduating, he completed an unpaid internship in the US Congress before moving into banking at Morgan Stanley. Explaining his decision to leave the lucrative world of finance, he’s said: “I found it really interesting but I didn’t love it, so I wanted to do something more aligned to policy areas I was interested in: employment and education.”
8. He’s got no interest in getting into politics
Back in 2017, Blair contributed an essay to a collection published by the Policy Exchange Think Tank in which he lambasted the ‘one size fits all’ approach to university education – an opinion that stands in stark contrast to his father’s pledge during his term as Prime Minister to get half of all young people into higher education. He also doesn’t share his father’s political aspirations, saying “I’ve not really thought about it. I love doing this and this is a long-term thing I care about; employment and creating opportunities.”
9. He’s got a Multiverse-branded T-shirt in every color
Like most start-up CEOs, Blair doesn’t ‘do’ suits. What he does do, to an almost excessive degree, is Multiverse-branded T-shirts and hoodies, which, according to The Guardian, he has in almost every color “so I can wear a different one every day.”
10. He’s not the only success story in the family
It’s fair to say that Blair and his siblings got a head start in life thanks to their parents, who helped all four of their children become millionaires at an early age when they gifted them properties from their own multi-million-pound empire. But each has also gone on to achieve huge success in their own right. Blair’s sister, Kathryn, has become an acclaimed barrister, while his brother Nicky is a football manager. Youngest child Leo is still a student, but is already showing signs of following in his father’s footsteps as an upwardly mobile member of the Labour Party.
