You Only Live Once (7 page)

I hated the fact that Pete and I weren’t getting on. I even thought about moving my horses to a different stable and looked into it, but the fact was there was no one else nearby who was suitable and anyway Andrew was one of the best trainers around. Also, I thought why the hell should I?

But, ironically, at the same time I was also happy because I loved the feeling of freedom which riding gave me as well as the challenge of learning dressage. I had always wanted to compete from when I was a little girl but my mum could never afford to buy me a good pony; we had to have one on loan. He was called Star, and had reached the grand old age of eighteen. Whenever I took part in any pony shows he was always the ugliest and hairiest pony there, although it didn’t matter to me because I loved him! So now I could afford a decent horse, I felt I could really pursue my dream. I would come home on such a high, wanting to talk to Pete about what I’d achieved, but he just didn’t seem to want to know. I kept asking Pete to the yard to watch me ride but if he did come he never seemed that interested. He would be on his phone and look as if he’d rather be elsewhere. I felt uncomfortable and tense because of all the arguments. I wanted him to understand my passion for riding and to enjoy it with me, but he was always focussed on other things.

I knew that Pete was low because we weren’t getting on, as was I. He was also desperate to get his music career going again and really wanted to be famous for his music again, but didn’t yet have an album deal. I thought he definitely deserved one because he was so talented. My mum would often tell him that he would be brilliant in a West End musical so why didn’t he go for that? I thought the same. But he would just reply, ‘I’m waiting to see what Claire gets for me.’

I wanted to support him but because he was giving me such grief over my riding we weren’t getting on. It was a vicious circle that neither of us could seem to break. He would say, ‘Why are you being so defensive?’ but I wasn’t. I’d tell him again and again during this time that I loved him, that I wanted us to work out, and I really did.

During this time when we weren’t getting on Pete would quite often go over to his house in Cyprus and inside I would think sadly, ‘This so isn’t what I want from my marriage. What happened to the guy I was in love with . . . the guy I married?’ And then I’d think, ‘This is all fucked up, this all because we’re filming too much. Why can’t we disappear from it all, take a break?’

But it didn’t happen. And the more we argued and were filming, the worse it got. Pete was better at making an effort in front of the camera than I was. If I felt moody and unhappy then that’s how I was when I was filmed, and that put still more strain on our marriage. However, things weren’t bad between us all the time. Some days we’d get on brilliantly, but then it would turn bad the next. And I think it became a pattern and then the good days grew fewer, as the bad times took over.

Because we weren’t getting on I didn’t want to have sex with Pete and that became yet another problem area between us. Every night I would get into bed and dread him getting in next to me and bringing up the subject. I would feel myself tense up, not wanting him to mention the lack of sex and how he wanted it. Our bedroom was now another battle ground. But what woman wants to have sex when they’re rowing with their partner? If a man’s giving you a hard time, it’s the very last thing you feel like doing. Plus I was still on anti-depressants – admittedly a very small dose, but my sex drive was lowered because of them. At the same time I really loved Pete and wanted to cuddle up with him, to be close to him, I just didn’t want sex. I didn’t want any other man. I did still fancy him and I loved him so much. But at the same time I’d hate him for the way he was going on at me.

Maybe if we could have had a quickie to clear the air that might have helped break the deadlock. As I commented to my hairdresser once on my TV show, ‘Isn’t it nice to have a quickie sometimes and not something that lasts forty-five minutes?’

I’ve heard an expression which nails our situation perfectly back then – that men need to have sex to feel loved and women need to feel loved to have sex. And there were many times when neither of us felt loved.

What made the situation between Pete and me even harder was that around this time the press was full of stories that we weren’t getting on and were about to split up. None of the reasons the press reported were the right ones, but it was an added pressure. It was clear that someone we knew was selling stories. Whoever it was was telling a fragment of the truth, embroidering it, and then selling the story to the magazines.

I felt very unhappy during this time and deeply sad. I hated Pete and me not getting on. I felt that we had so much going for us as a couple. We loved each other, we had our brilliant kids, our lifestyle, our work . . . why couldn’t we make our marriage work? So I suggested that we have marriage counselling. We had problems and needed help. We seemed to have lost all perspective and our marriage was falling apart as a result. We both agreed to have counselling as we thought that would help our marriage. So I asked the therapist I had seen when I was suffering from post-natal depression to recommend someone suitable. We started seeing a therapist once a week. I was willing to try anything to save my marriage. I was sure that this was just another bad patch and that we would get through it. My constant hope was that things would work out between Pete and me.

In July 2008 we moved to a new house in Surrey. I hoped that it would be a fresh start for us after all the things that had gone wrong in the old one. It felt as if that house in Ockley had brought us nothing but bad luck as a family. There had been Harvey’s horrific accident, Pete’s meningitis, and a further terrifying accident when a mirror fell on Harvey and broke his nose. We had both come to feel that the house was jinxed for us in some way. The new one seemed perfect for us as a family. It had plenty of room with seven bedrooms, a spacious living room and a gym. It was set in 1.5 acres and had an indoor swimming pool which all the children loved, but especially Harvey. I really liked the modern design of the house. It had an open feel, with plenty of light flooding in, and the large kitchen was the focal point, which suited us all. It even had a sweeping marble staircase into the hall which was great for posing on though of course it had to be made secure with stairgates. There was, however, one big drawback: the paps could park right outside our gates, whereas our old house was on a private road and they couldn’t get close. With this new house, every time you drove through the gates you ran a good chance of being photographed. This was something that was to become a real problem.

CHAPTER NINE

HAVE I GONE TOO
FAR?

Ever since I’d had my breast reduction in December 2007, I’d known I would have to have further surgery on my breasts. I went to see several surgeons in the UK and they all agreed that the gap between my boobs was far too wide. When I lay down they fell to the sides and you could see the breastbone in the middle and see where my boobs should have been. So it wasn’t me going off on one, there was a real problem. I was so frustrated! I had looked forward to getting new boobs back in December but now I had to have yet another op. I hated to think about what my poor body had been through in the past seven years – what with having three children and all the surgery.

In April 2008 I flew out to LA to get my veneers redone – these were the ones that had been causing me so much pain because of the bonding glue. Talk about suffering to be beautiful! During that visit I went to see Garth Fisher again. He agreed that I needed another breast op. This was the way he described it to me. Imagine what would happen if you put a small pillow into a large pillow case – it would have a lot of room to move around in. I’d had big implants and Garth had replaced them with smaller ones but he hadn’t taken away enough skin, so the implants had too much room to move around in. ‘I can’t do any of the shoots for my underwear lying down,’ I told him, ‘my boobs just roll to the side and look really ugly.’ After what I’d been through to get them and the money I’d spent on them, I wanted a good result! I was relieved that Garth agreed with me. I didn’t want him to think that I was some kind of freak who liked being put under the knife for the sake of it. And although I wasn’t happy with the first boob job he’d performed, I knew he was a really good surgeon and trusted him to put things right.

I had been worried about what the scars might look like as I’d had to have an anchor scar where they cut around the nipple and vertically down the breast and underneath it, but Garth is very good at stitching and the scars were already fading, even though the ones underneath my boobs were quite long.

‘I want bullets!’ I reminded him. ‘Pert bullets! I want the best tits in the UK!’ I’m sure most women would want a more natural look, but not me.

I flew back to LA on 4 August 2008 with the film crew of our reality show. I’d agreed they could film me just before I went into the operating theatre. Not many people admit to having surgery like I do. I don’t have to tell anyone anything about what I’ve had done, but I have chosen to be open about it because I want to share what I go through. And I’ve been open about it from my first-ever boob job all those years ago, which was why I didn’t mind being filmed as I got ready for surgery. But as for what goes on during the op . . . that is between me and the surgeon.

Pete came with me as he wanted to record some tracks for his album in LA. Things were still very difficult between us, though I hoped that being away together might help. But it was tough because it was getting closer to September and we had already said that we would renew our wedding vows then. I had wanted to do this for a long time, ever since I had recovered from the post-natal depression that had wrecked my wedding day and put such a strain on our marriage, and Pete had wanted to as well. Although we had only been married for three years, we both felt that we had been through so many problems as a couple we wanted to celebrate our love again. But by now we were arguing so much that I really didn’t think I wanted to go through with it. ‘Maybe,’ I told myself, ‘things will be OK again by then . . .’ It’s what I hoped. However tough things were between us, back then in 2008 I didn’t want my marriage to end. I still thought we would pull through.

* * *

As time is always so tight in my schedule I also wanted to get some dental work done while I was in LA. Because the plane was delayed I had to go straight to the dentist, without any time to recover from the flight, and the film crew came along too and filmed me being given the anaesthetic. As usual I was saying how much I loved the sensation of going under and asked the anaesthetist to give me the anaesthetic as slowly as possible, so I could enjoy every second. I said to the dentist, ‘Do you think I’m mad?’

And he joked back, ‘Totally!’

But by the end of the week, I certainly wasn’t saying that. And after what happened next I can honestly say that I’ve had enough of anaesthetics to last me a lifetime . . .

I was also filmed just after I came round from the op. A month or so later as they were putting the episode together Claire showed me the footage and obviously I vetoed much of it. The footage showed me looking really dazed, talking gibberish, and was actually very disturbing.

They didn’t use those clips but they did include several of me seeming out of it, and one of me being walked to the toilet by Pete and the nurse. I thought it was rather upsetting when I saw the complete episode. I felt disturbed seeing myself in that state, and I know it really upset Pete. I’ve seen Harvey have an anaesthetic and I know how distressing it is seeing someone you love lose consciousness and then having that anxious wait until they come round.

The following day I was booked in to have my boob job. I wasn’t nervous as this would be the fifth time I’d had surgery on my breasts. I thought it would be a routine op where the problem would be put right and I would finally get the pert boobs I wanted. In my mind it was all very straightforward. I’d have the op, take a few days to recover, and then enjoy LA. Because I was being filmed just before the op, I messed around and squished my boobs together and said, ‘Goodbye, my lovers!’ I was just having fun because the director wanted me to say something about my boobs. I joked that I was going to come out Plastic Woman. I had also decided to have a small op on my belly button. I’d had whooping cough as a baby and had ended up with an outie as a result. I wanted an innie and, as I was having the boob job, thought I may as well get that done at the same time. But here’s a tip . . . don’t bother! It cost eighteen hundred dollars and a few months later it ended up looking exactly the same.

It was a five-hour operation and seemed to go well. At first I felt OK after the surgery. I was in recovery for a few hours, I think, and then I was taken to an after-care clinic. It’s all very different from the good old NHS where you stay in a hospital and are seen by your doctors. In LA it seemed that once you’d had the op, you wouldn’t see your doctor again. Instead you’d be in a clinic, taken care of by nurses. All the time you are very aware that you are paying for everything – from your food to your medication. Because Pete was working on his album, my good friend Jamela – well, she was a good friend back then, though that changed after Pete left me – spent a lot of time with me in the clinic. Two days after the op I went to the salon at the Beverly Wilshire hotel to get my hair extensions put in again. I had booked the appointment ages ago as I’d thought I would be fine by then and, as I was only in LA for a week, I knew I had to get them done as quickly as possible. I hadn’t checked out of the clinic, this was just a trip out for the day. But on the morning of the hair appointment I wasn’t feeling at all good. I was exhausted and still felt knocked out from the anaesthetic, and my boobs were really sore. Also, my right arm felt numb, like a dead arm, and I couldn’t lift it. I had told the nurses at the clinic and they had been injecting me with painkillers. The drugs knocked me out but didn’t help my arm. It wasn’t that it hurt, just that I couldn’t seem to feel it. All I wanted to do was lie down and rest. And on top of feeling so rough, I was being filmed. After major surgery it’s hard enough to recover, never mind when you’ve got a camera in your face.

I wanted to say, ‘Fuck the show, I really can’t deal with this,’ but I didn’t. And so the cameras were still on me and I know I came across as having the hump and being moody, but I felt really shit. Pete came to see me while I was getting my hair done and was all excited about recording tracks for his album, but I just felt so out of it I couldn’t talk, even though I was pleased for him. He thought I was angry with him, but I wasn’t. I was in such pain that of course I wasn’t myself.

As soon as I’d had my hair done I went straight back to the clinic. When I mentioned the fact that my arm was feeling numb again, the nurses gave me more painkillers which knocked me out. I was already on painkillers to ease the pain of the surgery and couldn’t seem to think clearly. I was trying to text friends back home but as soon as I’d had the painkillers my head would feel so heavy I couldn’t carry on.

The following day I thought I would surely be OK to go out for a bit of retail therapy. It was a mistake. I was in Juicy Couture buying clothes, along with Jamela and Nicola and the film crew. Outside the store the paps were pressed up against the glass, jostling to get a shot of me. Suddenly I felt really unwell. ‘I’ve got to go back to the clinic,’ I told Nicola. I didn’t want to let on to the paps that I was feeling ill so I put on an act and forced myself to smile. But as soon as I got in the car with its tinted windows, I collapsed back into the seat. I was in absolute agony from the surgery and my arm was still numb. I could hardly move it at all. It was freaking me out.

Back at the clinic I again told the nurses about my arm. ‘Look, I can’t move it,’ I told them as I lay on the bed. And this time they could clearly see that there was a problem and phoned Garth. It was around eight in the evening by the time he arrived. It was such a relief to see him. He examined me but couldn’t see any reason why there should be a problem with my arm. He told me that he would have to operate again so he could take a look at what was going on inside. Instantly my heart sank. This would be my third anaesthetic in less than a week and I knew that wasn’t good. What’s more, Garth wanted to operate right away.

I was on so many painkillers by then and in such pain that my memory of that time is quite hazy, but I can vaguely remember getting into Garth’s car and being driven to his clinic. It was closed and he had to open up. It was weird as I saw no one else in the building except for us. I had called Pete and he was on his way. I felt very vulnerable and wanted him with me. He arrived just as they were about to give me the anaesthetic. I wasn’t joking around and laughing this time. I was really scared.

I was out for three hours while Garth investigated the cause of my numb arm. He couldn’t see that there was any reason why my arm was numb. It was most likely because of the position I was lying in for the breast surgery. My arm had had to be stretched out above my head for five hours. He was certain that the feeling in it would return very soon, that it wasn’t serious. It was a relief to hear that, but meanwhile my arm was still numb, and I was still on painkillers and feeling out of it, and now I had a third anaesthetic to recover from.

That was probably enough for anybody to deal with, but I had also decided to have surgery on my prolapsed womb. I have a tilted womb which makes you more susceptible to having a prolapse. Having a natural birth with Harvey and him weighing in at over eight pounds hadn’t helped. And even though I had Caesareans with Junior and Princess, just being pregnant puts a great strain on the womb. Garth had recommended a gynaecologist who saw me and said it was a straightforward procedure to fix the prolapse and only took forty-five minutes. I wasn’t having a designer vagina. Medically this was something I needed to have done or I would need a hysterectomy eventually.

This time I didn’t let them film me going into surgery, but I did allow them to film the doctor explaining that this was an operation carried out for medical reasons. After the op I was back at the clinic once more. Through the haze of the anaesthetic I remember thinking optimistically that I was now sorted from head to foot – I had new boobs, a new belly button, and I was fixed down below. I didn’t need anything else except my Botox and fillers, which I’d have done just before I flew home.

But instead my situation went from bad to worse. I was now in excruciating agony from all the surgery. And the more pain I was in, the more painkillers I was given, which made me feel completely out of it. I lost all track of time, the days merging into each other in a blur of pain. My memory of this time is full of blanks. Jamela told me that she would be talking to me one minute and the next I would have fallen asleep. I would text friends but my messages would be complete rubbish. At one point I asked my mum how a pregnant friend of mine was doing. ‘She told you she lost the baby the other day,’ Mum said in surprise. And I had no memory of it. I cried because I felt awful for my friend all over again, and I felt frightened because I couldn’t remember something so important.

I had already said that there was no way I could be filmed as I was in such agony. Fortunately I didn’t have to argue about it. Nicola agreed. In fact, I think she was shocked by my fragile state. I know I had chosen to have surgery, so I’m not asking for sympathy, but the breast op had been to correct something that had gone wrong and I’d had no idea that the other surgery would leave me in such pain. I know that everyone close to me hated seeing me like this and was desperately worried about me. And I was scared.

After this last op I was bedridden. My arm hurt, my boobs hurt, I was so sore down below that I even couldn’t sit down. It was the worst pain I had ever experienced in my life – yes, even worse than childbirth. I actually thought I was going to die. I had a catheter because of the surgery and the nurse said they were going to take it out to see if I could go to the loo, but I couldn’t. I was in agony. The amount of anaesthetics and painkillers I’d been given had seriously affected my bowels and my waterworks. My stomach swelled up so much it looked like I was seven months pregnant. The nurses gave me suppositories and prune juice but nothing worked and when I tried to go it was agony. I would be on the loo for hours trying to poo out a tiny pebble. It was as bad as labour pains.

I got Jamela to take a picture of me down below so I could see what was wrong and it looked horrific – swollen and purple and blue. No wonder I couldn’t go to the loo. The nurses couldn’t give me any more painkillers to cope with the pain, so they said they would have to put in another catheter. I was crying and shouting out in pain as they did, but at the same time because of the painkillers I felt as if I was in a dream. Or rather a nightmare.