Styling guru, TV star and author Susannah Constantine, 62, opens up to Gemma Calvert about her fear of ageing, overcoming anxiety and why she’s desperate to welcome another baby.
Words: Gemma Calvert. Images: iD creators.
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When news broke in spring that Susannah Constantine had survived life-saving surgery, she was inundated with calls from concerned friends.
‘People were ringing me up and saying, “Are you still alive?”,’ says Susannah, who was rushed into theatre last May after being diagnosed with arteriovenous fistula – a rare, abnormal connection between an artery and a vein. For months, she had endured symptoms including pins and needles and pulsatile tinnitus in her ears. While surgery created a 10 per cent chance of stroke, paralysis or brain haemorrhage, not taking action would have tripled the risks.
‘I had no choice,’ continues the former host of BBC style makeover show What Not To Wear. ‘If I’d been younger, it would have been more concerning, but I’m 62 now. I just took it in my stride, put my faith in medical science and the amazing NHS. Now all my symptoms have gone, and a year on, I’ve got a clean bill of health. I’m feeling really good.’
Susannah says she finally feels at peace in her skin – supremely aware of her strengths but also accepting of her weaknesses.
‘There are times when I’m really insecure about things, but those insecurities have shifted over the years. Maybe now it’s about parenting adult children or being very bad at organising. I’m not a leader at all. I’m definitely more of a follower. There is confidence to be gained in knowing what works for you, and that comes with age. Self-confidence comes from not feeling so much pressure to be confident and being able to say no, which is the most important word in the English dictionary as far as I’m concerned.’
When Susannah’s television show with co-star Trinny Woodall ended in 2007, her confidence crumbled. After working for so long professionally as a duo, it was a deep struggle adjusting to being an individual in the spotlight.
As she coped with the death of her mother, drinking became Susannah’s best friend. After seven years of secret alcohol abuse, once she accepted she was an alcoholic, Susannah entered Alcoholics Anonymous and successfully turned her back on booze for good.
Today, almost 10 years sober and an ambassador of gut health supplement Symprove, Susannah has a “little and often” approach to health, which involves implementing plenty of small positive lifestyle habits to live as healthily as possible.
‘For me, the idea of healthspan as opposed to lifespan is vital,’ says Susannah, sitting at the kitchen table of her West Sussex home. ‘It’s why looking after your gut health, eating well and exercising for strength and flexibility are so vital. If we’re lucky enough to live until 85 when we still have our wits and physical capacity, then go us! I don’t want to be old and infirm.’
Fearlessly frank and regularly hilarious, Susannah talks about her friendship with Trinny, celebrating 30 years of marriage to her Danish businessman husband, Sten Bertelsen, and begging her youngest, Cece, aged 21, to become a mum [she also has son Joe, 26, and daughter Esme, 23].
‘I’ve been wearing hearing aids for about a year. I sound like I’m falling apart! I don’t wear them all the time, but I do when I’m with a lot of people, and it’s made a massive difference. Before, I would end up almost lip reading, which made me feel embarrassed or rude on occasions. Someone would say their mother had just died, and I’d start laughing.
‘It was exhausting because I had to concentrate so hard and it was quite isolating. There’s scientific proof that if you have a propensity towards dementia, hearing loss speeds up the process because of the isolation and loneliness. There’s still such stigma around having to wear hearing aids, but they’re no longer huge plastic things. We all walk around happily using AirPods and don’t worry about wearing glasses, so where’s the problem with hearing aids? That stigma needs to change.’
‘I’ve learned tools to combat anxiety. It’s exercise, it’s cold water, it’s getting out in nature, it’s seeing my anxiety as a haunting that will pass, it’s using Symprove. Since I began taking it around a year ago, my anxiety levels when I wake up have reduced by about 50 per cent, and my brain is much sharper. Of course, I still get triggered, for example when there’s too much going on. I can get overwhelmed quite quickly so, like everyone, I benefit from half an hour a day of solitude. That’s why I love writing. I love being on my own!’
‘My aim is to exercise four times a week. Admittedly I don’t always reach this goal! I go running and to the gym where I lift weights and do strengthening exercises or spinning. I’d say I’m at 60 per cent of my peak fitness and I want to improve that. I’m not one for group fitness because I hate exercising with other people. I won’t even go on a walk with anyone else! My daughter will say, “Mum, I’ll come for a run with you,” and I go, “No you won’t!” I need time to myself to listen to music, a podcast, or the radio and to zone out.’
‘I dispute the belief that mums are needed less as their kids get older. Their problems become fewer but bigger. For both my daughters, I’m always their first port of call. My son Joe is completely independent now. He’s flown the nest. To the girls, I allow myself to be their b**ch because I’m there all the time and I’m proud to be because I never had that with my own mother.
‘When I was younger, I looked at other people who had really close relationships with their mums, and thought, “Why aren’t you more independent?” Now I feel so relieved that my daughters have someone who they can rely on because I know I can be 100 per cent relied on. It’s motherhood with a bit of friendship. They, especially my eldest daughter, tell me everything.’
‘I can’t wait to be a grandmother. I’ve been telling Cece to hurry up and get pregnant because I want to be a grandmother. I was like, “Get on with it. Be a teenage mother. I’ll look after the baby.” I have two nephews who I’m very close to, and I imagine having my own grandchild. It will be fantastic. I’m so excited.’
‘More than anything, I want my children to be fearless, to be themselves and do what they want. So far, it seems to be going according to plan. My son Joe passed out from the Naval Cadets last December and is absolutely loving it. That was a totally unexpected calling. Esme’s doing boxing training for a charity fight and she’s bloody good. Her precision, coordination and speed are quite something to witness. I’ve said to her, “It’s not the taking part that counts, it’s only the winning!” Fearlessness without arrogance is the best gift you can encourage in a child.’
‘When I wrote my 2022 memoir Ready For Absolutely Nothing, revisiting every chapter of my life was a revelation. Going back to the 60s and 70s, I felt lucky to have lived in a time when there was real social construct, life was much simpler. There was no social media, which is the devil. We spoke to each other, we communicated. Instead of writing letters to friends, I’d record letters on a cassette tape recorder. We each had fewer friends, but those friendships were more intense. It was fascinating to look back at the whole social history of that time.’
‘Trinny and I are still very close. If you have a very deep friendship with someone and have experienced so much together, that never goes. We don’t hang out very much, only because she’s so busy and I hate going up to London now, but we speak often. Yesterday at 7am, I spoke to her for an hour!’
‘Next year Sten and I are celebrating 30 years of marriage – isn’t that amazing? For our 25th wedding anniversary we were planning to go to Bhutan and do the Snowman Trek, then Covid happened so we were unable to. Having a long-term marriage is about having common interests. We love doing the same things, we appreciate the same things, we have the same moral compass, but also a lot of it is down to love.
‘It’s just us two at home now and when your children are grown up and have left the nest, you’re left with someone who you haven’t seen for 25 years because you’ve been so focused on your children, and it’s luck as to whether you still like them, love them and fancy them. It’s like you’re rebuilding a relationship and so many people just give up. That’s why there’s a huge amount of divorce among mid-lifers. You’ve got to relearn how to live together and be together. It’s another adventure, another voyage of discovery, and if your relationship before you had kids was very strong, it’s more likely that it’s going to work.’
‘I’m very bad at taking responsibility and being accountable. I revert back to being a child, and I think that comes with being an addict. I really don’t see myself as an adult. I need to grow up in many areas of my life but at the same time, I wonder if still being a bit of a child keeps us young.’
Weirdly, my life now is more like it was before I started working in television. My TV career was almost like a big detour because my life is definitely much more domestic. I’m a mother, a wife and a housewife who happens to work.
‘I absolutely love working. It’s very important personally for my self-esteem. Right now, I’m working with a new organisation called Synapse, which will fill a mental healthcare gap that 13 to 25-year-olds fall through. You can’t get an appointment with a mental healthcare professional for two or three years. Through this platform, youngsters will pair with a trained coach. It’s so great in particular for women and men of my age who may be semi-retired or retired, who want to give something back. Purpose is the most important thing in life.’
Susannah has partnered with water-based probiotic Symprove to share more about good gut health and the menopause. Visit symprove.com.
