Tara Palmer-Tomkinson



Tara Palmer-Tomkinson (born 23 December 1971) also known as T P-T, is an English socialite, "it girl", television presenter, columnist and model. Her activities have been well-covered by the British tabloid press, and in the mid to late 1990s, she wrote a weekly column for the Sunday Time and subsequently contributed to The Spectator, The Mail on Sunday, GQ, Eve, Harpers and Queen, Tatler, Instyle and The Observers poradically.

Early Life
Her parents are Charles and Patricia Palmer-Tomkinson (nee Dawson). Palmer-Tomkinson's father has represented his country as a skier at Olympic level. Tara grew up on her parents' estate in Dummer, Hampshire, and was educated first at Hanford School, then at Sherborne School for Girls in Dorset. After she left school she worked briefly in the City of London for Rothschilds bank.

Television Appearances
In 2002, her public profile was revitalised when she made an appearance on the British television series I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, finished runner up. This included being gunged in the "Jungle Shower", one of the first "bush tucker" trials. In November 2005, Palmer-Tomkinson presented her third "behind the scenes" series on ITV2 for the hit show I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! NOW!.

She has also appeared on the reality shows Spelling Bee and Cold Turkey, which followed her attempts to quit smoking with Sophie Anderton, celebrity specials of A Place in the Sun and Blind Date and in episodes of Tabloid Tales, With a Little Help from my Friends, Russian Roulette, Celebrities Under Pressure and Project Catwalk. Palmer-Tomkinson also appeared on Top Gear in 2002 as their "star in a reasonably-priced car".

Palmer-Tomkinson's presenting credits include Animals Do the Funniest things with Tony Blackburn, Junior Eurovision, The British Comedy Awards...Party On, What Kids Really Think, Popworld, Top of the Pops, SM:TV Live, Company Magazine Bachelor of the Year, Dumb Britain, Extreme, a role as a team captain on Bognore or Bust which was hosted by Angus Deayton and work for GMTV, Five, LBC radio, the music channel The Hits and the Living TV programme Dirty Cows.

Palmer-Tomkinson is a regular talking head on celebrity based documentaries and in 2005, was named Woman of the Year by New Woman magazine. She played herself in the film Mad Cows and an episode of Footballers Wives, has acted in a film version of An Ideal Husband and was for a period the face of Walkers Crisps replacing Victoria Beckham. She appeared on an episode of Airline as a member of EasyJet Cabin Crew for a day.

Palmer-Tomkinson has been a contestant on Comic Relief Does Fame Academy for the BBC. She gave away tickets to see her compete in the show to "ordinary people" who had helped her out (the other contestants generally giving their free tickets to other celebrities). She invited the policeman who found her stolen car, the locksmith who helped when she was locked out of her house and her parents' local shopkeepers. On Friday 16 March 2007 (Red Nose Day- Comic Relief) Tara won Comic Relief Does Fame Academy, beating Tricia Penrose in the final. She was a guest on the BBC's Would I Lie to You?, a comedy quiz which was aired in the spring of 2007 and August 2008, alongside regulars Lee Mack and David Mitchell. In episode 7 of series 2, she revealed that she had been shopping in Sainsbury's "wearing nothing but a trenchcoat".

Other Work
Palmer-Tomkinson plays the piano, as was demonstrated at events at the Royal Festival Hall with the National Symphony Orchestra, at the Royal Albert Hall with Mozart, and at The Coliseum during a Leonard Bernstein tribute. She was also the star host of the Classic FM Gramophone Awards 2005. She once said she practises the piano daily for around 90 minutes.

She will be releasing an album of self-written music (originally planned for January 2008), which will be preceded by a single, I Don't Need You Anymore which she revealed is "about a narcotic, but I guess if you were listening to it, you could relate it to anything you liked."

In September 2007 her book The Naughty Girl's Guide to Life, co-authored with Sharon Marshall, was published by Sphere. It was serialised in The Sunday Times Style magazine and reviewed widely.

In October 2010 her first novel, Inheritance, was published by Pan Books.

Novels

 * Inheritance (2010)
 * Infidelity (2012)

Other Books

 * The Naughty Girl's Guide To Life (2007)
 * (Written with Sharon Marshall)

Personal Life
Palmer-Tomkinson hails from a family of landowners and Olympians. Her paternal great-great-grandfather was the landowner, and Liberal politician, James Tomkinson. His wife, Emily Frances, was the daughter of Sir George Palmer, 3rd Baronet. Palmer-Tomkinson's grandfather James Palmer-Tomkinson, uncle Jeremy Palmer-Tomkinson and father Charles have all competed at multiple Winter Olympic Games. Palmer-Tomkinson is the youngest of three children. She has a brother James and a sister, Santa Montefiore (nee Palmer-Tomkinson). Her brother-in-law is the historian Simon Sebag Montefiore.

Palmer-Tomkinson's family have a close relationship with the British Royal Family. Her parents are friends of The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall. She attended the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.

In 1999, she was treated at the Meadows clinic in Arizona for a cocaine addiction, and since her recovery has supported various drugs charities.

In 2006, Palmer-Tomkinson received extensive publicity after her septum nasi collapsed due to her former £400-a-day addiction to cocaine. Pictures were printed in several British tabloids. She underwent cosmetic surgery to have it rebuilt, at a cost of £6,000. Some sources claim the surgery was carried out by cranio-facial surgeon Martin Kelly, the late husband of actress Natascha McElhone.

Popular Culture

 * During the war in Afghanistan in 2001, British special forces nicknamed the Tora Bora caves, where Osama bin Laden was thought to have been hiding, "Tora Bora Tomkinson".
 * In 2004, Paul Harvey's painting of Palmer-Tomkinson was exhibited in The Stuckists Punk Victorian show at the Walker Art Gallery for the Liverpool Biennial.
 * She has a waxwork model in Madam Tussauds in London.