Spy: Filthy rich and in love

Frankie Adams and Vinnie Bennett. Photo / Norrie Montgomery.

Romance was in the air at the launch of TV2's much-anticipated comedy-drama Filthy Rich on Wednesday night.

Stars of the show - about the infighting in a fictional richlister family and premiering tomorrow night - mingled with other Kiwi celebs and A-listers at Auckland's Mantells on the Water.

And the new show wasn't the only talking point. Several Filthy Rich stars set tongues wagging with their off-screen romances.

It seems there's been plenty of love action between the stars of the new show and TV2 stalwart, Shortland Street.

Former Shorty Street star Frankie Adams, who was looking sensational in a slinky satin dress, was on the arm of Filthy Rich star Vinnie Bennett - and the newly loved-up pair couldn't keep their hands off each other. When we asked the lovebirds where they met, they exclaimed to Spy: "In another lifetime."

Ben Pryor and Emma Fenton. Photo / Norrie Montgomery.

Adams was quick to point out she was supporting her beau, just as he had supported her in the Pride Festival's lesbian play Puzzy the night before at the Basement Theatre.

Adams was due on stage during the speeches at the Filthy Rich launch, so Bennett dutifully walked the actress out.

Also doing a couple turn was Emma Fenton, Filthy Rich's stripper-turned-heiress Savannah, with her boyfriend, Fitness CEO Ben Pryor, who posed for Spy.

Pryor promised he had a special surprise in store for the actress on Valentine's Day.
Insiders had told Spy the show's bad-boy star Josh McKenzie would make his new romance official on the red carpet at the premiere.

However his date found herself with a double shift on Shortland Street so instead McKenzie took his sister.

Josh McKenzie and his sister Emily. Photo / Norrie Montgomery

Spy hears he is dating blonde bombshell Kerry-Lee Dewing, who plays nurse Kylie Brown on Shorty.

Several weeks after the TVNZ season launch last September, the couple enjoyed a getaway to Pauanui on the Coromandel and since then speculation has been rife
of a summer romance. But McKenzie was keeping quiet on his new romance and declined to comment to Spy.

Filthy Rich is described as "a sexy drama centred on three illegitimate children who discover they each have a claim to the fortune of one of New Zealand's wealthiest men". It stars the gorgeous Miriama Smith, who owned the red carpet, glistening in Zambesi. She plays the show's matriarch Brady Truebridge.

The show has received $8.25 million in New Zealand on Air funding, the most money ever handed out to a drama.