Get to know Jamie Laing’s posh mum, and the wild way his family got mega-rich

Jamie Laing and Sophie Habboo’s new reality TV show Raising Chelsea arrived on Disney+ earlier this week, and aside from the happy couple, the biggest character in the series is definitely his mum.

He’s the biggest mummy’s boy ever, constantly ringing her up for just about everything. But who is Penny? And how did the *very* posh Chelsea mum get so rich? Here’s a deep dive into Jamie’s mum’s life.

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Everything you need to know about Jamie Laing’s mum

Jamie’s mum is called Penny Baines. The 70-year-old isn’t in the limelight herself and doesn’t have a public social media, but she lives in the Cotswolds with her husband Ed Williams, Jamie’s step-dad. Penny divorced Jamie’s dad, Nick Laing, when he was eight and Jamie didn’t have a relationship with him for a long while, but they are now back in contact.

@jamielaing

Penny doesn’t even know what TikTok is 🤣

♬ original sound – jamie

On Fearne Cotton’s podcast, Jamie revealed his mum and dad were married for almost 50 years but were very unhappy, and it caused a lot of issues for him and his siblings. Jamie has one brother, Alexander, and a sister called Emily. He also has two older half-sisters from his dad’s first marriage.

@jamielaing

This was emotional 🥹

♬ suono originale – 🔮🎹Girolamo Parisi 🎹🔮

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When his parents divorced, Penny and Jamie moved from their country house in the Cotswolds to a new city home in London. She sent Jamie to boarding school at Radley College not long after, but was always there for him. On the Lessons From Our Mothers podcast, Jamie called her his “hero” and said she would sew his name into his uniform and always turn up for him.

Penny and her husband Ed are now retired, but she used to work in a corporate job. Ed was the chairman of Jamie’s sweets business, Candy Kittens, for 12 years. He retired in 2025 after teaching his step-son how to run a business.

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The wild way Jamie’s family got seriously rich

Jamie’s mum is mega-posh and clearly lives a very luxurious life. But his family actually got rich from his dad’s side. Jamie’s great-great-grandfather, Sir Alexander Grant, was the one who invented the digestive biscuit in 1892. Yep, really!

The company’s founder Robert McVitie died without an heir and Alexander was appointed chairman and managing director. He left the company to his son-in-law Hector Laing, who is Jamie’s great uncle, when he died in 1937.

Credit: YouTube

Jamie’s dad Nick inherited some of the company but sold his share in McVitie’s in the mid-90s. For a very pretty penny I’d expect, which is how he became rich. And I’m sure Penny would have got some of this when they divorced. Nick now works in the travel industry and founded Steppes Travel, a luxury travel agent based in Cirencester.

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