TPT R.I.P.
Found dead at just 45...tragic demise of the original It Girl
ROYALS and celebrities have paid tribute to former It Girl and TV personality Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, who has died at the age of 45.
The socialite, who rose to fame in the 1990s with her party lifestyle, was found dead at her home yesterday.
In a statement from Clarence House, Tara’s godfather Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall, also a family friend, said: “We are deeply saddened and our thoughts are so much with the family.”
Ex-boyfriend and Blue star Duncan James, 38, tweeted: “Heartbroken and numb I have lost one of my oldest and dearest friends. I’m going to miss ur laughter the most shmooey. RIP sweetheart.”
Last year, Tara received treatment for a non-malignant brain tumour and revealed she was suffering a potentially fatal auto- immune condition. She said she spent the previous summer feeling run down. Police are treating her death as unexplained.
Tara had previously spoken of a battle with cocaine addiction and of being diagnosed with a form of autism.
Yet behind her wild ways and demons was a talented woman who was a close confidante of the royals, friends said.
Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty magazine, said: “She did have it all, and perhaps that was part of her problem.
“She was a good-looking girl, she had a fabulous family, she was a brilliant skier, rider and she was very artistic. She sang beautifully.
“I think there was just too much, and life gave her too many choices, and she just didn’t make the right ones.
“But she was a very generous, sweet person.”
Tara was born in Hampshire on December 23, 1971, the youngest of three children to Charles Palmer-Tomkinson and Argentinian born Patti. Her brother James runs a ski company and sister Santa is a writer.
Tara said they had a “privileged but normal” childhood. But her family were all high-achievers. Her wealthy landowner dad was an Olympic skier. Tara said in 2010: “I don’t think anybody in my family really wanted to know about me until I could play Mozart and ski a black run. “There was always that understanding that to be a proper P-T you had to be successful. I don’t know what a proper P-T is but I have a feeling I might not be it.” Her dad met Patti when she was a chalet girl in Swiss resort Klosters. Patti was friends with Camilla Shand, now the Duchess of Cornwall, and the couple became pals with the Prince of Wales, who her dad Charles taught to ski when he was 14. Tara remained close to Charles and his sons William and Harry, and attended the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2011.
Tara was 20 when she launched herself on to the London party scene. But it was also the start of her cocaine addiction. “I went to the Oscars and the Baftas,” Tara said. “It was like Christmas every day. The trouble is, it turned into a white Christmas.”
She dated celebrities including Simply Red singer Mick Hucknall and Robbie Williams, and was briefly engaged to Greg Martin, son of Beatles producer Sir George, in 1999. Prior to that, her cocaine addiction became apparent when she gave a rambling interview to Frank Skinner.
But going into rehab in 2000 seemed to mark a turning point. In 2002 she was runner-up in I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! and won over millions of viewers. Tara said: “I’m extremely grateful to I’m A Celebrity because I was able to show that I’m a bit eccentric but I’m resilient, too.”
But just a few years later, Tara was pictured with a collapsed septum in her nose. She insisted it was the legacy of her pre-rehab usage and had surgery in 2006.
A year later she had another reality TV triumph on Comic Relief Does Fame Academy. But on other shows, including Project Catwalk, her behaviour was becoming more erratic and her appearance was more gaunt. Tara had another operation to fix her septum in 2010 but maintained she had not returned to cocaine.
She later went back into rehab, to treat anxiety and depression. And in 2014, Tara told The Jeremy Kyle Show she was living
I’ve lost one of my oldest friends, I’ll miss your laughter shmooey DUNCAN JAMES’ TRIBUTE TO HIS EX YESTERDAY
like a recluse as a result of anxiety. The same year she also claimed she had been diagnosed with a form of autism which “could explain why I’ve always lived my life at such a frantic level”.
Tara added: “I was even given Ritalin as a child to make me concentrate. No one could understand why I behaved a certain way.”
Later in 2014 she was arrested at Heathrow over a fracas when she was refused entry to the first-class lounge. Tara denied claims she was drunk and insisted she’d had a panic attack.
Met Police yesterday confirmed a woman in her 40s had been found dead at Tara’s address in South Kensington, South West London. A statement added: “Police are not treating the death as suspicious.” In November, Tara revealed she had a tumour in her pituitary gland and a condition where abnormal antibodies attack the body’s cells and tissue. But she said: “I’m 100% determined to get better. “I’m like Alice In Wonderland. I fall down the rabbit hole... then, just as I poke my head out the top, I fall back down again. But I will get out.” Tragically, Tara never really escaped her own wonderland.