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Richard Clive Desmond (born December 8, 1951) is a British publisher, current owner of Express Newspapers and founder of Northern and Shell plc. Express Newspapers publishes the Daily Express, Sunday Express and Daily Star, while the Northern and Shell publishes pornographic titles, such as Big Ones and Asian Babes. He also the owner of the most popular pornographic television channel in the UK, the Fantasy Channel.
He grew up in north London and left school at 14. His first job was for Thomson Newspapers, working in classified advertisements. He moved on to another company and by the age of 21 owned two record shops. He acquired an interest in publishing and in 1974 published a magazine called International Musician. In 1982 he published a British version of the American pornographic magazine Penthouse. But his biggest publishing deal was the launch of celebrity magazine OK! in 1993.
Desmond attracted controversy over his £100,000 donation to the Labour Party. Several prominent Labour members, including Clare Short, broke ranks to question whether the party should be accepting money from a publisher of pornographic magazines.
After buying Express Newspapers in 2000 for £125m, Desmond became embroiled in a bitter feud with Viscount Rothermere, publisher of the Daily Express's rival the Daily Mail. The Mail ran several articles describing Desmond as a pornographer and christening him "Dirty Desmond".
In April 2004, the Daily Express shifted its support from Labour to the Conservatives. On the same day Desmond caused a scandal by accusing the Daily Telegraph, which was then considering accepting a takeover offer by the German Axel Springer group, of giving in to Nazis. Desmond allegedly harangued the Telegraph's chief executive and associates in faux German at a business meeting and imitated Adolf Hitler, before erupting in a tirade of four-letter words.
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