Daily Mail

How addiction took its toll in very public breakdowns

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the years included pop singer Duncan James, Matalan heir Jamie Hargreaves and Fiat boss Eduardo Teodorani-Fabbri.

Tara claimed to have a sex addiction and during a 2002 appearance on the ITV reality show I’m A Celebrity (on which she was the runner-up) reportedly passed X-rated notes to fellow castaway Darren Day.

Friends say it was a source of much sadness that Tara never managed to settle down. ‘All she wanted was to find a man who loved her, who would take care of her and love her for who she was,’ one says.

‘Men used to take terrible advantage of her because she had this reputation. It wasn’t her, deep down. She longed to get married and have a family.’

As she struggled to rebuild her profession­al life, doing ad hoc work on daytime TV and presenting light entertainm­ent shows, Tara relied on the support of her family, who were there for her during her darkest hours.

‘She was her mother’s favourite, there was no secret about that,’ says a friend. ‘They are terribly convention­al, solid people — and Tara needed that; a rock when everything around her was unsteady.’

She was close, too, to her nieces and nephews, the children of her older siblings James and Santa. Not having any children of her own, she strove for their love and admiration, and wanted above all to retain their untainted image of Auntie Tara.

In a recent, unpublishe­d interview conducted just weeks before her death, she was asked what drives her in life. ‘To make my family proud of me again,’ she said. ‘I’ve put them through a lot.’

Friends, acquaintan­ces, even journalist­s who interviewe­d her and strangers who were fortunate enough to spend time in her company were struck by her incredible warmth and generosity.

She had time for everyone, it seemed, except in the end herself.

For underneath all the trappings of fame and drugs and money, Tara had one thing so many of her contempora­ries lacked: a kind heart. Where other celebritie­s were seedy, she was silly; where they bitched and backstabbe­d, Tara knew only how to make fun of herself.

And it was this grounded, human side that kept her in the public’s affections over the years. When she won Celebrity Fame Academy, the BBC’s reality singing show for Comic relief, in 2007, her friends couldn’t have been more delighted to see her back on her feet.

Her brilliantl­y idiosyncra­tic rendition of the Nancy Sinatra classic These Boots Are Made For Walking, belted out on stage in a black ballgown and knee-high leather boots, not only delighted those who had been willing her on, but won her a whole new generation of fans.

Miraculous­ly, despite several indiscreti­ons along the way — most famously when, during that infamous chat show appearance in 1999, she asked: ‘What do you want to know about Prince Charles? How big?’ — she maintained her close friendship with the royal Family.

She was invited to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding in 2011, waving confidentl­y to the crowds in a kingfisher blue off-the-shoulder dress. She looked, to all outward appearance­s, as if she had finally shed the demons that had plagued her all her life.

More recently, Tara seemed to build success upon success. She published her first novel, Inheritanc­e, and last year set up her own fashion company and brought out a women’s clothing range.

She even fulfilled her ultimate childhood dream: playing a 9ft Steinway piano at the royal Albert Hall, in a stunning performanc­e that left her critics dumbfounde­d.

In recent years, she refused to discuss those hedonistic, drug-fuelled years that catapulted her to fame two decades ago.

‘I’m not going into detail,’ she declared when asked about that era last year. ‘That’s in the past. I’ve been clean for years.’

She professed to have given up smoking and said alcohol was banned from her house. Temptation, it seemed, remained her biggest vice of all.

Somewhat prophetica­lly, Tara was asked in that final, unpublishe­d interview how she would like to be remembered after she had gone.

‘Like a Bernese mountain dog,’ she said. ‘Cheerful, beautiful and loved by all.’

That, in the end, is all Tara ever wanted: to be loved. And whatever the circumstan­ces of her tragic and premature death, in that, at least, she succeeded beyond doubt.

 ??  ?? Natural beauty: As her It Girl status soared in the late Nineties, so did her modelling career 1998
Natural beauty: As her It Girl status soared in the late Nineties, so did her modelling career 1998
 ??  ?? NOVEMBER 2016 Brave face: Tara revealed that she had a brain tumour in the Daily Mail in November
NOVEMBER 2016 Brave face: Tara revealed that she had a brain tumour in the Daily Mail in November
 ??  ?? Family portrait: Aged 16, left, with sister Santa, mother Patti, brother James, father Charles and their dogs 1988
Family portrait: Aged 16, left, with sister Santa, mother Patti, brother James, father Charles and their dogs 1988
 ??  ?? Masked ball? Tara dons a bikini, fur coat and snorkel at her 27th birthday 1998
Masked ball? Tara dons a bikini, fur coat and snorkel at her 27th birthday 1998
 ??  ?? Close: The expert skier at Klosters in Switzerlan­d with godfather Prince Charles 1995
Close: The expert skier at Klosters in Switzerlan­d with godfather Prince Charles 1995
 ??  ?? Butter wouldn’t melt: A young Tara on her family’s 1,200-acre estate
Butter wouldn’t melt: A young Tara on her family’s 1,200-acre estate

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