Susannah Constantine on alcoholism, flashing royals and Trinny Woodall
“The one thing I do regret was when Jo Brand did our show. I’m really ashamed, looking back."
This feature was originally published in Radio Times magazine.
Susannah Constantine and Trinny Woodall found fame on the hit BBC fashion makeover show What Not to Wear, which first aired in 2001. Their combination of straight-talking style advice and trademark boob-grabbing earned them reputations as telly’s most ruthless fashionistas. But, according to Constantine, the show would certainly fail if it was made today.
“It was of its time and came along at the right moment, but it wouldn’t work today and I can understand why. People are fed up of being told what to do,” she explains, and then describes as “exhausting” the need these days to be much more aware of causing offence.
Does she look back at those days and feel discomfort about how harshly she and Woodall critiqued the wardrobes of people who appeared on the programme? “No, because genuinely – both Trinny and I say this – there’s not one person who regretted coming on our show, not one.”
But there is one caveat… “The one thing I do regret was when Jo Brand did our show. I’m really ashamed, looking back. I have little whiskers on my chin, which I pluck, and she had a little whisker on her chin, which I plucked and it really offended her. I felt terrible about that.”
Penning her memoir Ready for Absolutely Nothing forced the former style guru to confront plenty of shortcomings from her past, including a propensity to “collect people instead of things” – note the chapter detailing her obsession with Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears, being haunted by her lack of humility after declining Mario Testino’s offer to take her engagement photos and the impact her years of alcoholism had on her family, particularly her children, Joe, 23, Esme, 21, and Cece, 19.
Constantine has been now been alcohol-free for seven years, notwithstanding two relapses, which she describes as “amazing for me, not for anyone else”. Constantine is sitting in her kitchen at the 127-acre property in rural West Sussex that she shares with her children and Sten Bertelsten, 58, her Danish husband of 27 years.
There are a plethora of half-full bottles of wine and spirits around her home, but she insists she’s no longer at risk of temptation, because the rewards of sobriety are too precious to lose.
“I see the world now,” she says. “I see the little things. I’m much more efficient, more present and my life is completely different. Not in how I live but how I perceive my life, how I see what’s around me and the gratitude I have for even the tiny things.”
Constantine takes anti-anxiety medication but being teetotal means her triggers – anything from being “caught out telling a little white lie” or helping her kids through problems (“I’m very codependent with their emotions”) – are these days less likely to push stress into anxiety. And although parenting pressures often leave her feeling overwrought, she thrives on being needed.
“Motherhood consolidates my worth within my family. There are times when I think Sten is a much better father than I am a mother, so then I’ll cook something amazing to try and make myself feel better about it! I’m a good mum, although I’m a bit of a pushover.”
It’s in her role as mother and wife where Constantine feels her truest sense of self, she says – and it was always her dream “to live in the countryside in a house that we didn’t have to lock, that welcomed everybody”.
In her 20s, Constantine lived a different kind of dream, as the long-term girlfriend of Viscount David Linley, the son of Princess Margaret. During their six-year relationship she enjoyed a fairy-tale lifestyle: dinners hosted by the princess at Kensington Palace and holidays at her home, Les Jolies Eaux, on the Caribbean island of Mustique, breakfasts with the Queen, a Concorde trip around the British coast to mark the Queen Mother’s 85th birthday and weekend breaks at Balmoral – including one attended by Margaret Thatcher that featured an awkward exchange between monarch and prime minister over tea and cake.
In Constantine’s book, hilarious anecdotes featuring Princess Margaret are the most entertaining, including the time she rescued Constantine during a toilet dilemma at a private lunch at London’s Royal Naval College, and an evening at a Mustique drinks party when Constantine distracted the princess by repeatedly flashing her breasts. “What adult could you do that with?” says Constantine with a chuckle. “I could say anything to her and was so at ease in her company. I felt safe with her. There was a tremendous loyalty between us and I loved her very fiercely.”
The depth of Constantine’s adoration for Princess Margaret is put into context when you consider her mother’s physical and emotional absence. Mary-Rose Constantine, a depressive and an alcoholic, prioritised social gatherings and overseas business trips with her Old Etonian husband Joseph over raising Constantine and her elder sister Annette.
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Constantine harbours no ill will towards either of her parents, both of whom are now dead. “They tried their best and gave us an amazing upbringing,” she says. “We were privileged. We didn’t want for anything and where their shortcomings were, they found people to fill those holes.”
During her high-profile relationship with Linley, Constantine frequented the private London members’ clubs Annabel’s and Tramp and built a circle of famous party pals, including Mick Jagger, Dodi Al Fayed – and Ghislaine Maxwell, who last year was sentenced to 20 years in prison for procuring teenage girls for the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to abuse.
“To have known someone or met someone, and then to wind the movie forward and for this [to be] happening is really shocking,” reflects Constantine. “She seemed like a sweet person, and quite insecure, but there’s almost a sense of guilt in a way. It’s like, ‘Did I miss something?’ But, no, there was nothing.”
One friendship that has stood the test of time is with beauty entrepreneur Woodall, and it is a relationship that Constantine cherishes deeply. “There’s a real honesty between us, which breeds trust. I would trust her, my children and my husband with my life,” she says. “It’s the same as any relationship, it’s the same as a marriage – the key to a long-lasting friendship is acceptance.”
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Susannah Constantine's Ready for Absolutely Nothing is available to buy now.
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