TRINNY How my life fell apart
TV STYLE QUEEN BREAKS SILENCE ABOUT HER DARKEST DAYS
SHE enjoyed a fabulously successful career as one of TV’s queens of style. But Trinny Woodall has revealed how her world ‘unravelled’ when she was hit by financial woes and troubles in her private life – before she bounced back to find new love and launch a fresh business venture. Speaking in an exclusive interview with today’s You magazine, Ms Woodall recalls how the success she enjoyed with Susannah Constantine in What Not To Wear juddered to a halt. ‘We were no longer flavour of the month,’ she says. Her income dwindled and she was forced to save money. She adds: ‘I rented out my own house and rented this [smaller] one, and the difference pays the mortgage. I sold off my wardrobe.
‘I’ve had periods of real extravagance and times when money has been tight.’
At home, she had to witness husband Johnny Elichaoff – whom she married in 1999 – struggling with addiction.
She says: ‘It’s amazing how you can fail to see what’s going on around you. And then, everything unravelled.’
They divorced in 2009, five years before his death aged 55. Now 53, Ms Woodall also found herself affected by the menopause from her mid-40s. ‘I seemed to lose my energy
and positivity,’ she says. ‘I felt insecure, my emotions were all over the shop. Thankfully, that’s passed now. There might be lots going on but I no longer have that feeling of waking up in despair.’
For Ms Woodall, one positive side effect of the menopause was putting on weight.
She says: ‘I put on two stone in the menopause, but I’d been 8st 11 lb before, which was far too thin.’
Her life is now utterly transformed, in part thanks to meeting art collector Charles Saatchi, ex-husband of Nigella Lawson.
‘I was so lucky to meet him,’ she says. ‘He is my best friend and the person I tell the most to.’
She has also launched her own make-up range, TRINNY London, an innovative capsule collection of essentials that can be carried around in neat pots which click together like Lego bricks and bear the inscription Be Your Best… – her motto.