“I spoke to my dad about it and he said: ‘That’s never going to happen,
Tamara.’ ” The billionaire was right. Ground down by the recession, viewers
didn’t find Ecclestone’s million-pound bathtub amusing – nor did they see
the intended “irony” in her declaring a pimple “a medical emergency” and
racing to a dermatologist to have it zapped. “Living your life publicly
opens you up to a whole load of criticism and I understand that, but I had
hoped people would see another side to me. I don’t really want people to
take me seriously. I don’t take myself that seriously.”
Marie Antoinette-isms aside, it’s hard to dislike Ecclestone. Untouched by
real life, she exudes wealth – her skin is the colour of expensive fudge and
her hair and lashes impossibly lustrous – but her eyes aren’t money-deadened
and there’s none of the hardness of the super rich there. She’s warm and
giggly and feels misunderstood by her countrymen. Still, after toying with
the idea of joining Petra in LA (where her sister splashed out £91 million
on the late Aaron Spelling’s mansion last year), Ecclestone decided that she
couldn’t bear to leave London and bought herself a 24,000ft “dream home” –
still being refurbished – opposite Kensington Palace. “There has never been
any competition between me and Petra,” she insists when I ask whether there
was any truth to rumours that the sisters fell out over the intended move.
“We’re very different but she’s the person I trust the most in the world.”
She has Petra’s initial tattooed on the inside of her wrist, and says she
can’t wait to be an aunt – even via Skype. “But in the end I do feel that
London’s home. When we get into the new house I hope never to move again.
I’ve got a huge dressing room and I’ve built Omar [her boyfriend of two
years] a ‘man cave’ so that he can have his poker nights there.” And the
famous bathtub? “I’ve not bathed it in yet, but I can’t wait,” she laughs.
“Maybe I’ll bathe in cow’s milk in my crystal bathtub.”
It was Ecclestone’s mother, Slavica – a former Armani model from Croatia who
divorced her husband in 2009 after 23 years of marriage – who encouraged her
daughter to start up the charity initiative she’s promoting today: an eBay
shop of her discarded clothing, with all the proceeds going to Great Ormond
Street Hospital. “I’m a hoarder,” she says, biting her bottom lip. “My
mother tells me I have problems, which I probably do. So we came up with the
idea of auctioning off three items every 10 days to the highest bidder.” She
has 100 pairs of jeans, she tells me. “Jeans for when I’m fat and thin and
when I’m just slobbing around. I buy wild printed jeans just to be different
and never wear them.” She’s not so extravagant with shoes, she says. “I must
have 150 pairs, and I know that’s a lot, but these days I think we all have
a really warped idea of what’s a lot and what’s not.”
Even on the off-the-scale Ecclestone chart, the socialite has to concede that
her sister Petra’s wedding at the medieval Castello Orsini-Odescalchi
outside Rome last year was lavish. “I loved my maid of honour dress. Petra’s
gown was by Vera Wang and even though I’m worried about copying her, I’d
like mine to be too. I’m thinking of getting married in Gstaad, where we
spend every Christmas,” she runs on, “but then it would be snowing and I’d
be freezing…”
The “Crack Baby”, Boujis-inspired cocktails of vodka and champagne and mini
cheeseburgers she has planned for the reception aren’t just part of an idle
fantasy: Ecclestone has found the man she wants to marry once she turns 30 –
stockbroker Omar Kyhami. Only one thing could spoil the day, she says, and
that’s any friction between her parents. “They both came to Petra’s wedding
and they were perfectly civil to each other, so hopefully they’ll do the
same at mine.”
Ecclestone’s decision not to attend her father’s wedding to his Brazilian
girlfriend, Fabiana Flosi, recently made headlines. Has she changed her
mind?
“No,” she says tightly. “I’m not going. I like my step mum but I don’t even
know when the wedding is and, actually, I haven’t even been invited.” Ask
whether that’s what caused offence, and she gives an indulgent smile. “Well,
I don’t know that Dad knows when his wedding is – or maybe he doesn’t want
to offend me. Plus he knows that I’m very loyal to Mum. In a way I think
he’s trying to spare my feelings.” Would it be so disloyal to go? “I don’t
know.”
For the first time since we sat down together Ecclestone looks downcast. “I’m
happy that Dad’s happy but this just seems so, well, final. For the longest
time I thought that my parents would get back together.” What was it that
went wrong? “My father was such a workaholic and Mum kept expecting that to
change. Then when he got older and still wasn’t slowing down, constantly
playing second fiddle to him must have got tiring. The thing is that my
dad’s first love has always been Formula 1, and I get that, because if you
create a brand it must be really hard to hand it over to someone else.”
Ecclestone wasn’t so sanguine three years ago, when the split was on every
front page. “My parents’ divorce was the worst thing I’ve ever been
through,” she says, stroking Duke’s head distractedly. “It was such a bad
time for me.” She took refuge in food, binge-eating her way through those
painful months. “It was the biggest I’ve ever been. I always eat through
stress and my God – I just ate everything. I would drink a bottle of wine
every night then order Domino’s pizza, McDonald’s, chocolate fudge cakes
from Marks Spencer… it was obscene. I would never dream of eating that way
now because it certainly didn’t make me feel good.” A paparazzi picture of
herself at a party, several sizes bigger than the size eight she is now,
broke her out of it. “I didn’t even recognise myself. Still, I was lucky
enough to have people around me that I could rely on. I started going to the
gym and everything began to change.” Now, she only wishes her mother would
meet someone too. “Mum’s so happy and loving her single life but I’d love
her to meet a man.” A toy boy? “Yes!” she giggles. “She still young and
she’s so hot, but she doesn’t seem to be interested. She’s still obsessed
with being a mum.”
Those who envy and resent Ecclestone for her wealth should consider that she
was only 17 when her first boyfriend sold a “kiss and tell” to a tabloid –
and that in February of next year, she will be forced to give evidence in a
trial against the two men accused of blackmailing her for £200,000 in order
not to reveal details of another past relationship. Those kind of sordid
details make her “sweet-shop” life a little less covetable. “I’ve had people
say to me, ‘You’re just lucky sperm,’ ” she winces, “but I’ve chosen not to
let those things bother me any more. My dad’s worked hard to give his
children the best life he could. Of course we realise how fortunate we are,
hence all my work with Great Ormond Street, which is the most rewarding
thing that I do. Still it does become tiring, constantly defending yourself
purely because you have a successful father. Would other people in my
position give all their money away? I don’t think so.” She points languidly
to the Birkin bag sculpture. “That was just to take the —- out of myself
some more. This is not a dress rehearsal – you only live once, so I’m going
to do what makes me happy.”