My advice? You really do not need to marry every boyfriend...
TV’S PATSY KENSIT ON EX-HUSBANDS AND SHOWBIZ
After four husbands and an on/off fiance, Patsy Kensit certainly has no shortage of relationship advice. The actress was married to Big Audio Dynamite keyboardist Dan Donovan from 1988 until 1991.
She tied the knot with Simple Minds singer Jim Kerr a year later before separating in 1996.
Then she was married to Oasis’s Liam Gallagher from 1997 to 2000 before a one-year union with DJ Jeremy Healy from 2009 to 2010.
An engagement to property tycoon Patric Cassidy, with whom she split last July but later reunited, proves she has not been put off walking down the aisle again.
But now, aged 56, she has passed on a piece of hard-won advice to others: “You don’t have to marry all your boyfriends.”
Patsy, who shot to fame aged four in Birds Eye frozen peas adverts, gave the marriage guidance as she shared stories of growing up in public.
The former model and lead singer with 1980s pop band Eighth Wonder had her first son James with Kerr in 1993, and a second son Lennon with Gallagher in 1999.
But Patsy admitted managing her boys’ home life in the early years was not always easy, especially as she was estranged from their fathers.
She says: “My goal’s always been that my sons had a really good relationship with their fathers.
“For me, I haven’t spoken or had contact with those men. And there were times during the teenage years when you are going through a minefield and the kids hate you. “They love you, they hate you.” When it is suggested it has taken strength of character to raise two boys, Patsy replies: “It has. It’s never been reciprocated. I’m not bitter.
“I am very supportive of their relationships with their fathers, but I don’t have one. I like it that way.
“My youngest son, he is in a band, he’s a guitarist. That’s Lennon who’s 24. James is 32 and he’s finished a year-long tour with the Arctic Monkeys.
“He designed all the on-stage cameras and directed basically all the footage on the screens. He’s done very well for himself.”
There were times in the teenage years when it was a minefield
If they wanted to be child actors, would she have tried to put them off? “God, yes, absolutely,” she says, adding Lennon models, too. She says: “But his true love is he’s a brilliant guitarist. I recently went to the last Burberry show six weeks ago and he was in it.
“When I went, ‘Woo, woo’ [as he went past] I got daggers. I think I embarrassed him.”
The star was speaking at An Evening With… Patsy Kensit at The Delaunay restaurant in Covent Garden in London’s West End.
Her ex-fiance Patric was also at the dinner. They called off their engagement in July after Patric popped the question in February last year. Patsy was not wearing an engagement ring on Sunday but they have stayed on friendly terms after first dating in 2022. At the start of her career she signed a deal with Birds Eye aged four, which ran until she was 12. In the adverts, Patsy made a popping sound with a finger in her cheek like a pea pod opening but
PATSY KENSIT ON RAISING SONS AS A SINGLE MUM
the star revealed she thought she had ruined her audition. She says: “They asked do you like peas and I went, ‘Oh, no, God I hate them’.
“Those commercials were directed by Tony Scott, who did Top Gun, Adrian Lyne, who made Fatal Attraction. I’d run into Tony all the time and he would just talk about it and how we had a bucket next to me.
“So I’d eat the peas and then when he said, ‘Cut’, I’d spit them out.”
Patsy’s child acting career took off and she went to the Soviet Union for 10 months to shoot 1976 movie The Bluebird with the late Elizabeth Taylor. She said Taylor flew them over in a Boeing
747, which had a dance floor, and arranged Fortum & Mason packages full of chocolate and treats.
Patsy remembers Taylor as “the most incredible human being”, saying she never has met anyone since to equal her star power or ravishing beauty.
She added: “She had her hairdresser, her dresser, her assistant. If she wore red, they all had something red on. It was mind-boggling.”
Patsy says social media has killed
the glamour of Old Hollywood and its level of fame will never exist again.
She adds: “We are expected to put our lives out there and tell everything. How can you keep up with that?”
Patsy loved playing Emmerdale villain Sadie King from 2004 to 2006 and was nominated for Soap Bitch of the Year for two years in a row.
But she did not want to uproot her boys’ lives by moving north so drove to the set and back each day while
filming up to 12-hour days. Patsy moved to Holby City in 2007 for three years, with a guest slot in 2019.
She adored her role as Faye Morton but said she would be a terrible nurse.
Patsy was upset when Holby was axed in 2022 but as the child of ex-villain Jimmy Kensit, a pal of The Krays, was thrilled to join EastEnders as Lola Pearce’s mum Emma Harding in 2023. She said: “Look I’m from a council estate. I’m not a posh girl. It’s great casting because of my dad.” But she still dreams of a brassy role like Elsie Tanner on Coronation Street, famously played by Pat Phoenix.
Patsy said: “My dream role was to be that matriarchal woman. They used to turn up in inappropriate fur coats and they rehearse and then do it all in one day. It was a different time.
“Pat Phoenix to me is the boss lady.”