Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
My life through a lens
Celebrities share the stories behind their favourite photographs. This week it’s royal writer Lady Colin Campbell, 70
1974 I was fully smitten by Lord Colin Campbell. He had the strongest personality I’d ever encountered, he was captivating. This is us on our wedding day in New York, five days after we had met. But I soon discovered he had a huge drink and drug addiction, and, worse, a problem with his fists. He also admitted that he had married me for my father’s money, and because the Argyll clan only married great beauties. We separated after only ten months and we were divorced four months after that.
1992 Princess Diana saw my book, Diana In Private [pictured], as an escape route out of her marriage. Diana wanted to remarry so played the wronged wife for public sympathy. I was the first to reveal she’d had lovers and bulimia, and that Prince Charles was still with Camilla. My new book about Meghan and Harry reveals why things went so badly wrong.
1978 I met the actor Larry Lamb [pictured on a trip together] at the opening of The Ritz London casino. My friend said a gorgeous guy was giving me the eye, and he bolted across to say hello. I flew to Jamaica the next day, but we began dating when I got back. Larry was funny, sexy, intelligent and kind. We dated for six months and remained friends for years.
2015 Taking part in I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! was an amazing experience and the British public warmed to me in a quite unexpected way. My fellow campmate Chris Eubank tipped me off that Tony Hadley and Duncan Bannatyne [pictured] wanted to run me out of camp because they thought I was going to win. Why anyone would have voted for them is beyond me. And I had no interest in winning – I’ve turned down a French duke and several lords, why would I care about being Queen of the Jungle?
1970 I attended the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, and I started modelling after I interviewed a male model and his agency offered me a job. I was very slim, if a little short. It was unglamorous – I had to carry a heavy portfolio, clothes and wigs around. I was touted as the next Penelope Tree, but my father kyboshed it by saying modelling was ‘for tarts’!
1955 Here I am [right] aged six with my sister Sharman at home in Jamaica; my father’s family had grown wealthy through trade and we lived in a big house with servants. I’m in boy’s clothes because I was born with a birth defect and medics assigned the ‘superior’ sex to me. To avoid a scandal, my father had doctors give me male hormones. Later my grandmother paid for me to have corrective surgery in America.
1980 The Welsh baronet Sir Dai Llewellyn [left], known as ‘the Seducer of the Valleys’, was always trying to get me into bed. He said I didn’t know what I was missing. I liked him socially, but his brother Roddy is a nicer and kinder person than he was. My brother Mickey [centre] was also wonderful – he set up a law firm to help the disadvantaged and gave away most of his income to charity when he was dying from cancer. His loss, at 46, was a great sadness.
2016 I adopted my sons Dima [right] and Misha [left] from an orphanage in St Petersburg when they were babes in arms. I’d intended taking one child, but I was given a choice and refused to choose. They’re 27 now – and great guys. Dima works in finance in Cyprus; Misha, who has been in lockdown with me at Castle Goring in West Sussex [pictured], is in IT. A social worker once told me, ‘You’ll make a great mother. You’re warm, kind, loving – and ruthless!’