Nigella Lawson on how her struggles have altered her perspective: 'Life's too short'
TV chef and author Nigella Lawson has suffered more than her fair share of tragedies in life.
She lost her mother and younger sister to cancer when she was a young woman, and then her husband, the journalist John Diamond, died of throat cancer when their children were aged seven and four.
But speaking to Good Housekeeping a positive Lawson revealed the important lessons her biggest challenges have taught her.
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She said: “I now understand how important it is to stay in the moment and not worry about all the things that could go wrong. At this point in my life, if something is making me happy, I don’t want to chip away at it thinking, ‘Oh, this is going to end,’ because that feels ungrateful," she says.
"I suppose as you get older and you know you’ve had more dinners than you’ve got left, you realise that you can’t afford to waste the good things or the good times. Life is too short.”
Watch now: Q&A with Nigella Lawson
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Lawson, now 62, has become a global food icon selling more than eight million copies of her 13 cookbooks worldwide, and with her TV shows like Nigella Bites she has won an army of loyal fans.
And she says it was these followers who provided her with companionship during lockdown when she started offering cookery advice online.
She said: “Everyone kept saying, ‘Oh, it’s so nice that you’re doing that,’ but the truth is, it was a mutual thing. It still is. It gives me a sense of companionship and connection to others, which is really important to me.”
