As the actress daughter of an East End gangster and having married – and divorced – four rock stars, Patsy Kensit has experienced her fair share of drama.
While her own life may sound like something out of a high-octane TV show, Patsy – who made her soap debut on EastEnders last week – says she likes leaving her wild reality behind to step into someone else’s shoes.
Last week, Patsy arrived in Albert Square as Emma Harding – the estranged mum of Lola Pearce (Danielle Harold).
Her character abandoned her now-dying daughter when she was just three.
But it’s not Patsy’s first time in a soap – or portraying a bad girl – having played antagonist Sadie King in Emmerdale for two years before spending a further four years as Faye Morton in Holby City.
Patsy, 54, said: “Changing your appearance appeals to me… you play a character and then move on.
“You can live vicariously through characters if you get to play someone who is a total b**** and say all the things I never would!”
Patsy is no stranger to the world of acting, having made her first TV appearance in an advert for Birds Eye frozen peas at the age of four.
Her first big-screen role soon followed, in 1972 film For the Love of Ada, and two years later, she starred alongside Robert Redford and Mia Farrow in The Great Gatsby.
Patsy later portrayed Mia in the 1995 biopic, Love and Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story.
She said: “I have been in showbusiness for 50 years – every year since the age of four, I have worked.”
When she was a child, Patsy’s late father James worked for the notorious Kray twins in London.
Indeed, Reggie Kray was godfather to Patsy’s brother, Jamie.
James was always in and out of prison and Patsy recalls how the whole family once had to go on the run to the Caribbean after corruption at Scotland Yard was exposed and her dad lost his contact in the police.
He had apparently been bribing the officer with whole smoked salmon.
Recalling her childhood, Patsy, who attended a convent school, said: “I think there was a point where I was getting too old for roles at 13 or 14, but I was very lucky and managed to work at the BBC and do all the classics.
“My mum was very private because of my dad’s activities… had it all come out, my career would have been over. I paid for my own education and would often go and film and then back to the convent school.
“We had to wear hats and if the nuns found out we did not have our hats on, we would get detention.”
Growing up in the public eye, Patsy told how she often felt under pressure to look good, but never thought she was “anything special”.
The actress, who starred in a series of movies in the 1980s and 1990s, such as Lethal Weapon 2 and Passenger 57, said: “There has always been a lot of pressure about body size from the industry. I never felt pressure from my parents but I could sense there was a judgment on body type.
“I was never told I was pretty as my mum was a very modest person.
“As you grow up, you change and go through the weird phase where your nose does not fit your face… I wasn’t comfortable in my skin.
“I always loved clothes, but I was not delusional to think I was anything special.”
It’s only now she is in her 50s that mum-of-two Patsy has made peace with her body. The star, who also had two top 40 singles in the 1980s with her band, Eighth Wonder, said: “I am not seeking the elixir of youth… I just want to look the best I can.
“I have got into all the meditation – that you love yourself, keep healthy and strong.
“Growing up, I would have got a clip around the ear if they heard me tell myself that I loved myself! You did not use language like that.
“I do find it a little bit awkward but I follow the suggestions and it does make a difference.”
It’s not just Patsy’s upbringing and career which have sparked intrigue – her love life has often made the headlines too.
Her first marriage, when she was just 22, was to Dan Donovan, now 60, of the band Big Audio Dynamite. They divorced three years later. In 1992, she married Jim Kerr, 63, frontman of Simple Minds, and gave birth to her son James the following year.
But her relationship with Jim broke down after four years and in 1997, she married Oasis rocker Liam Gallagher, 50. Their son Lennon was born in 1999 and the couple divorced the following year.
She then married her on/off partner, DJ Jeremy Healy, 60, who was behind 80s band Haysi Fantayzee, in 2009 before splitting the following year. Patsy is now preparing to walk down the aisle for a fifth time, despite vowing never to tie the knot again.
She got engaged to millionaire property tycoon Patric Cassidy, 58, last year after a whirlwind five-week romance.
Patsy said: “Men become way more interesting in their 50s, which is a revelation to me.”
And opening up about her sons James, 29, and Lennon, 23, Patsy told how she always tried to keep them out of the spotlight.
“I was very protective about the boys being photographed,” she told the Beyond the Bathroom podcast. “We were always invited to premieres of new Disney movies and I used to throw them in the bin as the kids wanted to go.
“I was, like, ‘When you are 16 or 17, we will have that conversation’, but now they thank me and are super successful. I am so proud of them.”
Of the boys’ parents, Jim and Liam, Patsy said: “I don’t have a relationship with their dads
but it has always been important to have that male energy in their life as I did not have that with my dad. To their credit, they were super loving and wonderful to their boys.”
She added: “I have had a great life. There have been some real highs and lows but I don’t regret anything. If I did, it was that I used to care too much about what people thought.”
