Did Saatchi ditch Trinny because he’s jealous of her success?

There is a fine art to putting on a brave face after a painful romantic break-up, and posh TV presenter-turned-beauty tycoon Trinny Woodall is — predictably — very good at it.

She positively sparkled at a book launch party in Mayfair on Wednesday night, a riot of silver sequins and snake print and (naturally) perfect make-up and beautifully blow-dried hair.

Daughter Lyla, 19, was her date for the evening and she was pictured chatting with radio personality Vanessa Feltz, who is bouncing back after a romantic disappointment of her own.

The only hint that all was not, perhaps, 100 per cent fabulous, was the smile, which was not quite as broad as usual.

Friends have insisted that Trinny is ‘relieved’ after her split from art collector Charles Saatchi. One said: ‘She is radiant and she is looking forward to the future with positivity.’

Daughter Lyla (right), 19, was her date for the evening and she was pictured chatting with radio personality Vanessa Feltz, who is bouncing back after a romantic disappointment of her own

The only hint that all was not, perhaps, 100 per cent fabulous, was the smile, which was not quite as broad as usual. Friends have insisted that Trinny is ‘relieved’ after her split from art collector Charles Saatchi. One said: ‘She is radiant and she is looking forward to the future with positivity’

One even claimed that she had decided to ditch him because their age difference — she’s 59 and he’s 79 — started to become an issue. 

The source said: ‘Charles wants to slow down. He prefers quiet evenings at home while Trinny feels the opposite. She feels she’s in her prime and wants to be out and about.’

A quite different story is told by those close to Charles Saatchi, however.

The idea that Trinny broke up with Saatchi because of differing social priorities is scoffed at. ‘It was nothing to do with the age gap — or going out,’ says a pal.

Instead, Saatchi, who is worth £180 million, rather ungallantly is said to have started to find Trinny ‘boring’, and was beginning to tire of her relentless focus on her cosmetics business, too. 

Last year, Trinny London turned over £50 million and the brand has been valued at £180 million. 

One friend says: ‘Charles is absolutely fine. Things had faded away between them some time ago, last year, and it was a question of how it could be brought to a conclusion. 

‘I think he’s delighted that has now happened. Maybe he’s even a bit relieved that they can move on.

‘He is already on the lookout for her replacement and has been for a while. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had someone else in mind already.’

So what did go wrong?

Saatchi, who built up a gigantically successful advertising business, followed by a world-beating art gallery and a stunning personal art collection, is famously anti-social.

He detests parties and doesn’t even go to those thrown by his own galleries. He only ever goes out for lunch.

That was always the case, however, long before he met Trinny, and she seemed perfectly happy with that state of affairs for more than ten years.

At least twice a week they would sit at the same outdoor table at Scott’s in Mayfair for lunch, and Trinny would pick at a crab- meat salad followed by fish goujons. Saatchi mostly smoked cigarettes and drank red wine.

One even claimed that she had decided to ditch him because their age difference — she’s 59 and he’s 79 — started to become an issue. The source said: ‘Charles wants to slow down. He prefers quiet evenings at home while Trinny feels the opposite. She feels she’s in her prime and wants to be out and about’

Until a few months ago, Saatchi was her greatest support. He was by her side as she grieved ex-husband Johnny Elichaoff, the father of Lyla, who died by suicide in 2014

Far from itching to be out on the town without her older lover, Trinny has, in numerous interviews, talked about how much she enjoyed their quiet lifestyle, declaring that she hated going out at weekends, preferring to be ‘tucked up in bed with Charles, having dinner on a tray and watching Richard Osman’s House Of Games followed by a drama of some sort’.

Saatchi, meanwhile, contends that the relationship started to deteriorate post-lockdown while he was recuperating after an illness. ‘It was nothing untoward, the magic just went out of it,’ says a friend.

Interestingly, the magic started to fizzle out around the same time that Trinny’s business started to take off, and is cited as a factor by more than one source.

It is, perhaps, where the truth behind the split lies.

‘Trinny is not the ditsy darling she makes out but absolutely ruthless and totally focused, on her daughter and her career,’ said one friend. ‘She has very tunnel vision. And you know that Charles won’t come second.’

And there we have it.

Having become famous as one half of the plummy bossy duo in the Bafta-nominated TV show, What Not To Wear, with Susannah Constantine, Trinny was actually hard-up and out of the spotlight when she took the plunge and launched her make-up brand, Trinny London, in 2017.

It boomed during lockdown, with a 280 per cent rise in sales. Consumers — women of a certain age around the globe — who were stuck indoors, were nonetheless happy to spend their money on looking good.

The USP is Trinny herself, who demonstrates her products daily to her devoted ‘Trinny Tribes’ via very popular Facebook and Instagram videos, in which she usually starts out, bare-faced, looking far from polished.

Trinny, who has known serious financial insecurity in her time, is now sitting pretty as the main shareholder with a 42 per cent stake in the company.

She told an interviewer last year: ‘I’ve been hard up so many times. My dad lost all his money when I was 18, so I couldn’t go to university. When I went into recovery [for cocaine and alcohol addiction] at 28, I started with no money again.

‘After What Not To Wear, I was suddenly in a house with a mortgage I couldn’t afford. I had to sell it to clear my debt. People still assume Trinny London is funded by my boyfriend. The reality is that I have shed blood, sweat and tears on it during a very difficult time in my life.’

Interestingly, the magic started to fizzle out around the same time that Trinny’s business started to take off, and is cited as a factor by more than one source. It is, perhaps, where the truth behind the split lies

‘Trinny is not the ditsy darling she makes out but absolutely ruthless and totally focused, on her daughter and her career,’ said one friend. ‘She has very tunnel vision. And you know that Charles won’t come second’

Saatchi, meanwhile, likes to be the main source of interest in a partner’s life. Indeed, he is said to insist on it.

Nigella Lawson — his third wife — once complained that she had to resort to reading novels in taxis because he didn’t like her to read in bed.

That terrible ‘throttling’ incident at Scott’s in 2013, in which Saatchi was caught by a photographer with a hand around Nigella’s throat, was explained by her as a fit of jealousy after she’d remarked on how cute a baby passing by in a buggy was, and how she couldn’t wait to be a grandmother herself.

Apparently, he said that her only focus should be him.

‘He grabbed me by the throat and said: ‘I am the only person you should be concerned with. I am the only person who should be giving you pleasure.’ ‘

(Saatchi denies this and said that he was just trying to help her to ‘focus’.)

Nigella subsequently described him as a ‘brilliant but brutal’ man who had bullied her, leading to drug abuse.

For his part, Saatchi described the Scott’s episode as a ‘playful tiff’ and accepted a police caution.

He then commented: ‘If you are a narcissist, as I am, you may find it difficult to hold on to your wives. I never quite comprehend how it is possible to tire of my company, but it clearly is, and with reliable frequency.’

During the trial of her two former assistants, who were accused and acquitted of using her and Saatchi’s credit cards, Nigella said in evidence: ‘I have to say with some shame that I smoke the odd joint, starting, I would say, in the last year of my marriage to Mr Saatchi. It made an intolerable situation tolerable.’

She added that Saatchi had subjected her to ‘intimate terrorism’ and said: ‘He was a very controlling person. The marriage was difficult at many stages and also deeply happy at some stages.’

In Trinny — whom he started dating only a few weeks after splitting from Nigella — he found a partner who was like her in many ways. Trinny, like Nigella, has suffered from a lack of self-belief during her formative years.

Having become famous as one half of the plummy bossy duo in the Bafta-nominated TV show, What Not To Wear, with Susannah Constantine, Trinny was actually hard-up and out of the spotlight when she took the plunge and launched her make-up brand, Trinny London, in 2017

It boomed during lockdown, with a 280 per cent rise in sales. Consumers — women of a certain age around the globe — who were stuck indoors, were nonetheless happy to spend their money on looking good

Nigella, who had a complex relationship with her mother and describes herself as essentially a people pleaser, couldn’t bear to watch herself on television and once said that her flirtatiousness on camera was down to feeling horribly shy.

Trinny’s likeable on-screen personality belies a lack of self-belief. She blamed her cocaine addiction on her ‘total lack of self confidence’.

‘I never got used to being flavour of the month. I had years when I felt fraudulent and that somebody would find me out,’ she told one interviewer. ‘I didn’t feel comfortable. Now, I feel very comfortable and more myself,’ she said.

She has, through therapy and the AA programme, succeeded in believing in herself more in mid-life. And thanks to the success of Trinny London, she is far more of a career woman than Nigella ever was, far more successful — and far busier.

Her schedule is demanding. She rises at 6.30am for an online exercise session. A hairdresser calls at 8am to blowdry her hair, and then it’s straight into meetings, product development and of course, shooting those videos.

A particularly memorable one, filmed during lockdown, included an accidental guest appearance by Saatchi himself, when he wandered into shot, completely nude, on his way to the shower.

The day ends around 8pm, sometimes with a session of meditation to re-centre her after the demands of the day.

Until a few months ago, Saatchi was her greatest support. He was by her side as she grieved ex-husband Johnny Elichaoff, the father of Lyla, who died by suicide in 2014. 

(Another parallel with Nigella, who mourned husband John Diamond in the early years of their marriage, too.)

She trusted him where business was concerned. ‘Charles will give me advice and, sometimes, I’ll think, ‘No, I’m not taking that advice’, and other times I’ll think, ‘Well, he’s been tough with me, but I need to take that advice,’ ‘ she said.

‘That’s what a best friend should be able to do — the one person you can take the difficult counselling from, as well as the encouragement.

‘I know he’s really proud of what I set out to do. I know he sees how hard I’ve worked and it makes me feel good. It’s important for my self-worth.’

She added: ‘When, like me, you’ve already got your own child, home and income, a relationship has to add something different to your life — you’ve ticked all the other boxes.’ 

Now she has, thanks to her ‘big life change’, a chance to focus more than ever on this demanding, successful new reality.

She, like Nigella, lasted the course with Charles Saatchi for a decade. Doubtless there will be no shortage of men falling at her feet. Doubtless, too, that she will lost without her ‘best friend’ for a period.

And Charles? He wants a new partner for those lunches at Scott’s and to then enjoy dinner on a tray in bed every evening.

A friend summed up his demands thus: ‘He’d like someone to bring him chicken sandwiches in bed. And he doesn’t want to be bored.’

She, like Nigella, lasted the course with Charles Saatchi for a decade. Doubtless there will be no shortage of men falling at her feet. Doubtless, too, that she will lost without her ‘best friend’ for a period