A brief history of the ups and downs of Trinny Woodall
Trinny Woodall has hit the headlines again - only this time, it’s not her fashion sense that’s making people take notice, but her rather bizarre behaviour. On ITV’s This Morning yesterday, viewers took to social media to ask if the 53-year-old was “drunk”, after she spit out phlegm on the studio floor.
“I was just going to spit that phlegm somewhere else,' she said to presenters Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby. “Sorry, that was so undignified. You know when you get it caught in your mouth? I could hardly talk so I had to send it back down the other way.”
She also used her phone on air, until Schofield reminded them the show was live, and she then tried to hide her phone under her trousers.
The appearance came a day after she released a video blog on Facebook, where she seemed to inadvertently flash her breasts twice, while demonstrating the appropriate way to wear gym clothing.
Her behaviour has prompted her fans to question just what is happening with the TV stylist, who was once labelled Britain’s makeover queen. Yet it is not the first time Woodall has ended up in the spotlight over the years. Here, we chart her ups and downs:
1980
Woodall began drinking heavily and taking cocaine after leaving boarding school at the age of 16. By her twenties, she had an addiction and was £18,000 in debt. It wasn’t until she was 26 years old that she sought help for her addiction.
“There was an exact moment at 3am one morning when I knew I didn't want to do it anymore,” she said. “I was very low and knew I had to get out of London. I had to get sober, so I went to live in Weston-super-Mare and started over again."
1996
Woodall began writing Ready To Wear, a fashion column with Susannah Constantine, in this very newspaper. The weekly style guide was such a success that it ran for seven years.
2000
A year after Woodall and Constantine launched an online clothes shop, Ready2Shop.com, they had to shut it down. The website was rumoured to have debts of £10 million.
2001
Off the back of their Telegraph column’s success, and having written best-selling books, Woodall and Constantine were offered a BBC television show, What Not To Wear. Cue the birth of Trinny and Susannah, the straight-talking fashion gurus who quickly became a household name.
2007
Woodall’s friends said they were worried about the 43-year-old, who had recently clashed with contestants on a Comic Relief version of The Apprentice and was involved in an altercation with Alastair Campbell, and Piers Morgan who called her a “banshee.”
2009
Woodall divorced her husband Johnny Elichaoff, a former drummer, in 2009 after being married for 10 years and having a child together. Tragically, Elichaoff took his own life in 2014.
2014
Woodall was pictured with her partner Charles Saatchi in the same restaurant where he was photographed a year earlier, grappling with his ex-wife Nigella Lawson. Photographs showed Woodall crying, with onlookers saying she “was a bag of nerves.”
2014
When Woodall celebrated her 50th birthday, she wrote a blog that appeared to reference photos of Saatchi with his hands around Lawson’s throat. “It’s great that, at 50, life can still grab you by the throat and shake you up,” she wrote. “And it’s even better when you’ve learned to cope with whatever’s thrown at you — so long as it isn’t a bedside lamp.”
In what appeared to be a response to this, Lawson tweeted: “Slut’s Spaghetti — aka pasta alla puttanesca — is #recipeoftheday. Do I need to say anything more?”
2016
Woodall now has a strong online presence, creating YouTube videos where she helps older women improve their style and make-up routines. She has more than 20,00 followers on Youtube and more than 131,000 on Facebook.
