Revealed: How the top TV chef branded ‘the new Nigella Lawson’ walked away from celebrity – and even gave up cooking – after falling in love in her forties

She was a catwalk queen model turned internationally acclaimed TV chef hailed as ‘the new Nigella Lawson‘ and tipped to be one of the BBC‘s biggest stars.

But after fronting numerous TV shows in Britain and the US, and broadcast in 70 other countries globally, as well as selling a million books in the UK alone, Lorraine Pascale gave it all up and walked away from fame.

Now for the first time, The Daily Mail can reveal the full extraordinary story of how ‘burned-out’ Lorraine’s encounter with a business guru at her gym led her to rethink her life completely – to the extent that she even gave up cooking and turned to academia instead.

As one associate told us: ‘Very few people who get as successful and popular as Lorraine had been would choose to step away from that – but she is very much her own woman…and after she met her new man she soon started making some big changes.’

That man was Dennis O’Brien, a divorced father-of-two who had grown up in modest circumstances in Liverpool before founding a business consultancy empire with a £100m turnover – more of which later.

But Lorraine’s journey to household name status had inauspicious beginnings.

Born to Jamaican parents at a home for unmarried mothers in Hackney, East London, Lorraine was taken into care at birth.

At 18 months she was adopted by white parents, Roger and Audrey Woodward, and brought up in leafy Oxfordshire.

The couple divorced when Lorraine was three, after which Audrey began drinking heavily and became physically violent – as an adult, Lorraine was to see social worker documents saying her adoptive mother had tried to strangle and suffocate her.

Aged around eight, Lorraine was removed and sent to a series of foster parents for a year before it was deemed safe for her to return to Audrey.

After winning a scholarship, Lorraine was educated at a boarding school in Devon.

Lorraine, who is 5ft 10ins tall, planned to become a police officer as she thought that would be a suitable job for someone of her height.

But after being spotted by Naomi Campbell’s agent at 16, Lorraine became an instant hit on the catwalk and spent the next decade working for Versace, Chanel and Donna Karan.

After moving to New York, she became the first black British woman to appear on the cover of American Elle, as well as appearing in the ultra-prestigious Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and being photographed with Kate Moss for The Face.

Lorraine was aged just 23 when she married first husband Polish musician Count Kaz Balinski-Jundzill in 1995.

Daughter Ella – who shot to fame after landing a leading role in the 2019 Charlie’s Angels reboot movie – was born the following year.

The couple separated in 2009 and Kaz, 57, now lives on a country estate in Ireland with second wife Sophie Anderton, another former supermodel as The Daily Mail reported last week.

Looking for her first change in direction as her modelling work began to dry up, Lorraine began signing up for different courses and worked for a period as a trainee mechanic at a Skoda garage in Kent.

Then, in 2005, she took a diploma course at Leith’s School of Food and Wine and found that cookery fitted her ‘like a pair of old jeans’.

Lorraine established herself as a specialist cake maker, with a contract with Selfridges after an introduction from chef Marco Pierre White.

By the time Lorraine graduated from Thames Valley University with a first class degree in Culinary Arts her journey from catwalk to cupcakes was already in full swing and she had presented her first BBC programmes and published books that accompanied them.

Lorraine – who owns a £1.6 million flat in Chelsea – met second husband Dennis, 50, at her local gym in 2018 after he complimented her on her parking skills.

She said of the encounter: ‘He’d seen me reversing into a small space, then saw me in the gym and said “Nice parking”, and that was it.’

Dennis – who has a 17-year-old son and daughter aged 14 from a previous marriage – is a successful executive and investor in the healthcare industry.

He started out as a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company in his home town of Liverpool before going on to become founder and chief executive of Lucid Group – a communications and consultancy company which had a turnover of £96.2 million in 2024, when he stepped down.

The company attracted two big investment rounds – one of £11million in 2017 from a division of Lloyds bank – and another in 2021 believed to be worth considerably more.

The two investment rounds would have made founder Dennis a multi-millionaire having previously been taking out just under £1 million in dividends from the company between 2014 and 2017.

His LinkedIn profile says that he grew the group from just two people to 600 with offices in the UK, elsewhere in Europe and the USA.

In 2024, he stood down as CEO and took on a role as non-executive director at Lucid and is also building his own advisory and investment business which he says has already yielded considerable financial success.

On LinkedIn he wrote: ‘I love helping to build disruptive businesses that transform industries and make people happier and healthier.

‘Following a number of recent successful investments, I am building a practice to advise and invest in businesses that share my passion and where my experience can add value.’

Dennis proposed to Lorraine on July 5 2020 – his 45th birthday – after taking her on a celebratory lunch then surprising her.

Their wedding plans were thrown into disarray by the pandemic which eventually led to them having two celebrations.

They had to cancel their first date in May 2021 before eventually tying the knot in June at Chelsea Old Town Hall in front of a small group of family and friends before going on to have a reception at the Beaverbrook country estate in Surrey.

On an emotion-charged day, Lorraine was given away by Ella, 28, who she had not seen for 18 months because of the Covid lockdown.

Because restrictions meant no dancing was allowed and the number of guests was limited, the couple had a second wedding ceremony followed by a big reception at the top of The Gherkin skyscraper in London in November 2021.

Lorraine shared her memories of her ‘perfect day’ marrying the ‘man of her dreams’ in an ‘amazing Vivienne Westwood gown’ in an account published in British Vogue magazine.

She also posted photos on her social media accounts – giving rare insights into the couple’s private life.

While she has shared images of herself enjoying exotic holidays, her frequent postings focus on wellbeing, lifestyle and highlighting the benefits of skin care products.

Alongside that she has set out on a mission to help ‘midlife women feel their best’ – telling her 345,000 followers that as she has grown older she has learned to ‘put up with less s***’.

Lorraine also posts updates on her studies and speaks about overcoming adversity, sometimes referencing her upbringing as a fostered child.

In one post touching on her family life she wrote: ‘I met Dennis in my mid 40s. I was married and divorced to my first husband in my twenties.

‘The next couple of decades were spent going speed dating, being set up by friends and things like dating emotionally abusive and or emotionally unavailable men (Some not all!!!!).

‘Midlife dating was so terrifying. One of my weaknesses has always been not being good enough … Being an adoptivo (I am adopted and that’s what I call myself), I have always struggled with not feeling good enough.

‘Does not matter how many cookbooks I sold, or how many people watched my show, that You-must-not-be-good-enough-because-you-are-adopted pain in my gut was always there.

‘So I put up with things I shouldn’t. I tried to make the emotionally unavailable people available and I treated red flags like a red carpet welcoming my arrival.

‘I am well aware that it does not take another person to make us whole.

‘In fact when I did finally realise that fact and feel fulfilled and genuinely happy single, I met Dennis by the squat rack in the gym.’

Outlining her new career path in a TV interview, Lorraine said: ‘I’ve been through so much nonsense in my life I wanted to put it to good use. If you find real meaning to it, it can be healing.

‘Rather than be a TV chef talking about her experiences I wanted to do something different.

‘When I was modelling I felt it was fun and everything but I couldn’t be who I wanted to be, it was the same with cooking.

‘At first it was fun, but then after a few episodes it was you have to make this recipe, and this one… I thought you know what I’m just going to totally change, totally be me, stop being so reserved and be totally myself.’

Lorraine went on to speak of her plans to help others saying: ‘I’ve been in bad relationships, emotionally abusive ones, I got dumped the day my mum passed away, I wanted to put what I learned through much therapy and training to help other people.’

She is now working toward a doctorate in Psychology and Psychotherapy at the Metanoia Institute in West London.

Of her future plans, Lorraine said on her LinkedIn profile: ‘Fuelled by my own experience in foster care and my work with related charities, I’m researching how our early attachments influence our relationships. Understanding our psychological narratives helps us become better leaders.

‘I aim to help people strengthen their psychological self-awareness to become more effective and fulfilled in leadership roles.’

So far has she moved on from her old celebrity chef days that she actually told followers on her TikTok: ‘I don’t know if you remember me or not but I used to be on TV, cooking – a chef. Do you remember that?’

She continued: ‘I used to do cakes and bakes and all sorts of whatnot. And now, do you know what, I don’t really cook. I don’t really cook at all anymore.

‘It’s like so freeing to say, “Do you know what, I’m not cooking anymore” – I’m not. I’m studying. I’m doing other things.’

Lorraine concluded the message saying: ‘I haven’t cooked for a very, very long time and do you know what? That’s OK.’

It led to a flood of supportive messages from fans to which Lorraine replied: ‘I just want you to know that even though I don’t cook anymore, I really loved doing it.

‘When I was doing it, I loved it. It was something that gave me – it was like a creative outlet.

‘It was lovely hearing from other people about how much they enjoyed the recipes and it really meant a lot to me.’

But she added that ‘things change’ saying: ‘I guess it’s just like evolution. Like relationships. We’re not with the same person – some of us are not with the same person that we were when we were younger. Things change, right?

‘Things change. We change. And I think that’s what happened with me. So I love the fact that you’ve got my books and you’ve got my recipes.’

Lorraine – whose daughter from her first marriage is Hollywood star Ella Balinska – told how she was ‘doing a lot with my time at the moment’.

After successfully gaining a masters degree she is now in her third year studying for a doctorate in psychology and psychotherapy.

She spoke of her studies and her marriage to businessman Dennis.

Lorraine added: ‘Remarried. I’m a step-mum. I’ve got my daughter Ella and then I’ve got two stepchildren as well, so that’s what I’ve been busy at the moment with. That’s what I’ve been busy doing.’

It seemed a remarkable change of direction for the TV personality who had once been seen as a successor to Nigella Lawson’s domestic goddess crown after hosting a number of BBC series including Baking Made Easy and Lorraine Pascale: How to Be a Better Cook.

But Lorraine has also spoken in recent times of how her troubled childhood, previous ’emotionally abusive relationships’ informed her change of perspective as she approached her fifties.

She said in one interview: ‘I’m so much more than just a baker. I don’t want to have, “She was a baker” (as my obituary). I wanted to make changes to the world.’

And Lorraine told how her tough childhood had left her feeling ‘invisible, unimportant and insignificant’ adding: ‘Now I’d like to give a voice to the voiceless.’

And it would seem that whatever Lorraine ends up doing next she’s bound to succeed – at least according to proud daughter Ella.

The actress – who also starred in Netflix horror series Resident Evil said this month: ‘My mum’s attitude has had the biggest influence on me.

‘If you tried to draw a through-line between being an actor and a chef on television, you can’t.

‘The only thing in common is they are both on TV. It was her go-getterness, which was a massive part of my inspiration.

‘I never set out to be on TV. I started out in theatre. The industry evolved to be more on television and the screen. There was the massive streaming explosion, which is where my path led.

‘She’s someone who, when she puts her mind to something, she’s always gone and done it. That’s my biggest inspiration from her.’