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PATSY KENSIT REVEALS THE TERRIBLE SECRET THAT SENT HER INTO MELTDOWN, AND EXPLAINS WHY BOTOX IS NO LONGER THE KEY TO LOOKING GOOD

Interview by Louise Gannon

Photography by Alistair Morris

Patsy Kensit’s face is drenched in tears as she reveals how confronting her past left her in such emotional turmoil that she stopped washing, started binge eating and spent hours weeping.

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We are in a dressing room at a London TV studio, where she’s wrapped in a white towelling dressing gown and using the sleeve to mop up the tears rolling down her cheeks.

“I’ve fought so hard to get my family together so everything works,” she says.

“But within 48 hours I’d gone from someone who holds it together to a complete wreck.

“I was stuffing down double portions of pie and liquor, then going home and eating burgers and fries.

"I stopped washing my hair – it was so greasy you could have fried chips in it, but I didn’t care.”

You might assume 40-year-old Patsy is talking about her recent break-up or her past experiences with men.

After all, the mum of two has been married and divorced three times to three rock stars – Dan Donovan, 45, Jim Kerr, 49, and Liam Gallagher, 35, – and the dramas in her private life are well charted.

In the latest twist, her engagement to DJ Jeremy Healy, 45, was called off just days after her 40th birthday in March this year, though the huge rectangular 4.5 carat platinum-set diamond ring is back on her finger and she insists: “Everything is just fine. Actually it’s not just fine. It’s pretty great.”

Patsy’s recent meltdown wasn’t prompted by her love life.

It happened after she was confronted by the reality of the one relationship that has coloured all her subsequent relationships with men – discovering the truth about her gangster father for an episode of the BBC1 series,
Who Do You Think You Are?

“I wasn’t prepared for what I was going to find out,” she says.

Patsy’s father, James Kensit, was a career criminal known as Jimmy The Dip.

He was so close to the Kray twins that one of them, Reggie, was godfather to Patsy’s brother, Jamie.

“I adored my father,” she says.

“He was charismatic, charming and exciting to be around. Everything about my relationship with him is very complicated.

"I always called him Daddy because I was just 11 when he left [to go to prison for fraud].

“In my subsequent relationships with men, I’ve always looked for the unconditional love he gave me.

"As soon as I was with a man, I’d turn into a helpless little girl. It was a huge problem.”

When the programme’s researchers uncovered details of her father’s murky past, Patsy was devastated.

“I found out he’d gone AWOL from the forces and that he was described as a ‘bad man’ on his records.

"It was awful. I felt like I was being attacked. I couldn’t breathe.

“They then traced things back to my grandfather and it was the same story.”

“The whole experience left me an emotional wreck. A few days later I told the producer I needed to quit.”

Eventually Patsy was talked round, and she’s now relieved she stuck with the show.

“So much was explained about how my dad [who died in 1987] ended up as he did, and I now understand so much more about him and, as a consequence, myself.”

Patsy has known big highs and lows in her own life.

She started acting at the age of four, but her wild private life has often eclipsed her career.

After two failed marriages she ended up in a destructive relationship with her third husband, Liam Gallagher, and then battled with drug and alcohol addictions.

Post-Liam, Patsy reinvented herself.

She got fit and rebuilt her career, though her focus has remained firmly on her two sons – James, 15, whose father is Simple Minds singer Jim Kerr, and eight-year-old Lennon, who is Liam Gallagher’s son.

Patsy is proud to be at the heart of such a rock ’n’ roll family and spends a lot of her life trying to keep them all organised.

“It’s crazy at times – I work on Holby City, the boys’ fathers go on tour, and as a result I have to be super-organised.

I’ll be calling up both boys’ fathers saying: ‘Right, Christmas 2009, what are we doing?’”

Bringing her fiancé Jeremy into this complex equation last year was something Patsy never expected.

“Jeremy is right for me,” she says.

“I’ve finally made the right choice about a man.”

And Patsy’s certainly enjoying life at 40.

“The best thing about this age is that you get this inner-confidence and you no longer worry about competing with other women,” she says.

“Yes, I’ve got cellulite and wobbly bits, and I’m never going to have the perfect bikini body, but I’m happy with what I see in the mirror.”

Not that she’s against cosmetic surgery.

She’s admitted having a boob job, Botox and collagen in her lips, but says she now wants to grow old gracefully.

“It’s important to embrace your lines,” she says.

“I’ve got wrinkles, but I’m an actress and my face has to move to show expression.

"Looking good on the outside isn’t a worry.

"It’s a bigger deal for me to be happy on the inside. I feel strong and positive about the future.

"I feel this is going to be the best decade yet.”

Patsy stars in Holby City, every Tuesday on BBC One. Who Do You Think You Are? starts next month on BBC1.

 

THE FABULOUS 5

1. If there was an Olympic sport for anything, what would
you win Gold for?
Sleep.

2. If you could be invisible for one day, what would you do?
Watch my kids at school.

3. If you weren’t famous, what would you do?
I’d work in a clothes shop. I’ve always loved fashion.

4. If you could turn back the clock, what would you tell yourself at 13?
Love yourself. It’s the hardest lesson to learn.

5. What celebrity list are you on – A, B or C-list?
I refuse to rate myself.

 

Photography: Alpha, Starstock, Capital, Matrix, Rex Make-Up: Cheryl Phelps Gardiner at Art London Hair: Melissa Brown at Mandy Coakley using Kiehl’s haircare Patsy wears: top, £16.99, River Island (020 8991 4759); dress and shoes, Patsy’s own

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