She was a successful TV presenter before creating a multi-million-pound beauty brand, but Trinny Woodall has endured tragedy in her personal life.
Her ex-husband, businessman Johnny Elichaoff, died in 2014 at the age of 55 after falling from a department store car park roof in Bayswater, west London.
Now, Trinny has revealed the extraordinary and drastic lengths to which she has gone to help their daughter, Lyla Elichaoff, 23.
The former What Not To Wear star, 62, took Lyla to visit a shaman. ‘My biggest worry – because he [Johnny] took his own life, his mother took her own life and his grandmother took her own life – was Lyla would have this . . . not a gene, but something passed down to her,’ Trinny says at the Trouble Club’s An Evening of Radical Resilience at Ladbroke Hall.
‘We went to see a shaman to remove this.’ Shamen are spiritual practitioners who are believed by some to act as mediators between the human and the spirit worlds.
Trinny’s search for healing and reassurance for Lyla didn’t stop there. ‘I also then saw this medium lady, and she didn’t know anything about it. It was on a phone call, but she just said: “You have a daughter, and she could live in the darkness or live in the light, and she lives in the light.”’
Trinny Woodall with daughter Lyla Elichaoff at a Royal Academy Of Arts Party last year
Trinny said at the inquest that Johnny had become depressed over ‘terrible investments in oil’. Rumours of a so-called ‘ring of death’ surrounded the tragedy as he was a member of a group of six men alleged to have died in strange circumstances.
Friends expressed fears that they were all targeted by the Russian mafia.
However, despite initial reports that his death had been accompanied by the sound of gunshots, a witness told the Coroner’s Court that she had seen him alone on the roof and had watched him ‘deliberately’ take his own life.
The coroner recorded a verdict of suicide.
Maybe Damian will model mum Liz’s bikinis next?
The 23-year-old Damian Hurley in a £130 backless, halterneck top by Atelier Sirene, a label whose clothes are modelled exclusively by women on its website
Elizabeth Hurley has been tireless in her bid to encourage women to buy her bikinis.
Now, her son, Damian, is on his own sartorial mission – to inspire men to wear women’s clothes. The 23-year-old posed in a £130 backless, halterneck top by Atelier Sirene, a label whose clothes are modelled exclusively by women on its website. The brand was founded by his pals Eleonora Khan and Mary Sarantitis.
‘Damian has been a dear friend of mine for over ten years since we met at Wellington College,’ Eleonora tells me. ‘The tops can be worn by men, too.’
Well, that’s my Christmas present sorted…
Damian with his mother in a photo posted on Instagram
Rosamund Pike clears up a marital misunderstanding
Hollywood star Rosamund Pike revealed she had secretly married her boyfriend of 17 years
Rosamund Pike appeared to have let slip last autumn that she had secretly married her boyfriend of 17 years when she referred to him as her ‘husband’.
Now, the Hollywood star, 46, has admitted that businessman Robie Uniacke, 66, has still not proposed – and even warns their friends not to exchange vows either.
Rosamund, who has two sons with Robie – Solo, 13, and Atom, 11 – insists they are ‘happily not married’. She says: ‘My partner is famous for whispering to a bridegroom before he enters the church: “You are the only person who thinks this is a good idea.”
‘He’s always been a relentless truth-teller.’
Sheikh takes a gamble with missed court date
At the age of 83, he might by now have hoped to be taking it easy on his 200ft, £15 million yacht, or lolling around by one of the six swimming pools at his Marbella mansion, perhaps occasionally regaling friends with memories of the carefree days he spent in London back in the Swinging Sixties.
But I fear that Sheikh Hassan Enany, whose other possessions include an entire palace at home in Saudi Arabia, may be distracted from such pleasures – thanks to developments in the High Court.
Five months after I disclosed that Sheikh Hassan was being pursued for unpaid gambling debts I can reveal that he’s in deeper trouble.
Ordered to attend court earlier this year, he failed to turn up – and, in consequence, has been found in contempt, earning himself a 14-day stretch at His Majesty’s Pleasure.
‘The sentence is suspended,’ I’m told. ‘But if he fails to make it to court in June, a warrant will go out for his arrest.’
At which point, might Sheikh H. take his yacht for a very, very long cruise. Its name? Il Vagabondo – or ‘The Wanderer’…
He picked up a Michelin star at St. John, the London restaurant where he rescued unfavoured delicacies – tripe and trotters included – from oblivion.
But Fergus Henderson, 62, – diagnosed with Parkinson’s when only 36 – needed rescuing himself yesterday. ‘He was missing for three hours,’ his daughter Frances tells me. ‘He was with a carer but they lost him.’
A delivery driver proved to be the good Samaritan. Soon after, Fergus was reunited with Frances and family.
While I’m a Celebrity winner Georgia Toffolo parades around Cheltenham, her husband, James Watt, has been bowled a googly at Lord’s.
Marylebone Cricket Club signed a deal only last year under which BrewDog, the trendy-but-troubled beer maker which Watt co-founded, exclusively supplied its beers to the club’s notoriously bibulous spectators.
Now the club has written to members saying the deal is off. Owzat!
