We’re a very down to earth family!
A 57-room £70m mansion. 50 staff. A soft play centre for her little princess. But Bernie Ecclestone’s girl insists . . .
EVER wondered what to do with your basement swimming pool you can never remember to use?
Well, why not simply turn it into something the kids will love – their very own three-storey soft play centre, complete with a ball pit?
Brace yourselves, keeping-up-with-theJoneses types, because this is the latest home improvement socialite Tamara Ecclestone has carried out on her £70million, 57-room, mansion in Kensington, west London. It is just one insight into a life of unimaginable privilege we get in her new reality TV show Tamara’s World, in which the Formula One heiress claims, apparently without irony, ‘We are a very down-to-earth family’.
The first episode introduces us to Tamara, her husband Jay Rutland and their three-year-old daughter Sophia (known as Fifi) while they are being brought breakfast in bed by the butler.
It turns out Tamara, 33, actually employs more than one butler in her 50-strong team of staff – some of whom even get walk-on roles in the ITV show, carrying piles of fluffy towels, arranging her diary or hard at work in the kitchen.
The one member of staff Tamara doesn’t have, she is at pains to point out, is a nanny. ‘I don’t have any help with Fifi,’ she says, in all seriousness. ‘I’ve never left her, apart from at nursery for three hours three times a week. I can’t imagine not being there for her crying.’
Now your average working mum might question why you would need a nanny when you already employ a veritable army to keep on top of all the cooking, cleaning and washing.
But this leaves Tamara free to concentrate on more fragrant mummy matters such as cupcakemaking and playing with Fifi and her outdoor wendy house (anyone struggling to get on the property ladder, be warned: it is bigger than some starter homes) – plus the dizzying array of equipment in her immaculate garden, including a bouncy castle and trampoline.
Oh and breastfeeding. At three, Fifi might be deemed a tad old but Tamara is a vociferous supporter of attachment parenting. Fifi still shares her bed, and indeed all life in this house now revolves around making sure her needs are met.
Tamara and Rutland – who got engaged in 2013 just a week after meeting – had a reputation for being fervent party-goers.
In the six-part series, starting tomorrow on ITVBe, one of her PAs (yes she has two) is shown booking Rutland a private jet for a boys’ trip to Las Vegas. Despite this, Tamara says their lives ‘couldn’t be more different now’ – in fact, the couple don’t go out at all without Fifi. But is there any chance Fifi might one day have to share her ample play facilities?
With Tamara gushing about how special the Mummy-Daddy-Fifi unit is, it appears any siblings are out of the question for now.
‘The triangle is the strongest shape known to mankind,’ she insists. ‘We are going to stick to the three of us.’
Rutland might have different ideas. ‘Maybe there will be a square at one point?’ he says, hopefully. ‘No!’ says Tamara. Eek. Should alarm bells be ringing here? Certainly the Ecclestones do not have a history of harmonious family set-ups. Tamara’s father Bernie, the billionaire former boss of Formula One, has had three including her mother Slavica, who he divorced in 2009.
But Tamara insists all could not be happier in her triangle. But what of little Fifi, is she spoiled? How could she not be. When the cameras pan around her toys, it feels like you’ve been transported to Hamleys at Christmas.
There is a fabulous rocking horse that clearly did not come from Argos and a table football that looks more like an art installation. Even Tamara concedes her only child just might be a little spoiled: ‘I try not to spoil Fifi but I feel that sometimes I might, a little bit. But it’s hard not to.’
It’s unarguably a weird world, though, one that must make your head go a bit funny. How else to explain the peculiar way she describes how much Fifi will enjoy playing in her new soft play zone.
‘Soft play, to her, is the greatest thing in the world,’ she says.
‘To her soft play is, like, to a man going to Vegas on a private jet with, like, strippers, and boxing and nightclubs and a fried breakfast.’ Pardon? The PA never mentioned strippers had been booked too. And what a reference to hurl into a conversation about children’s soft play!
Even hubbie seems aghast. ‘That’s an interesting analogy,’ he says. ‘I’ve never heard it put like that before.’ Whatever’s ‘down-toearth’ in this family, it is certainly not Fifi’s entertainment budget.