I still enjoy sex…I just don’t think about it 24/7 any more much to my Italian Stallion’s dismay, says Tamara Beckwith
SHE was a Nineties wild child but former It Girl Tamara Beckwith is growing old surprisingly gracefully.
Now a 52-year-old grandmother, the socialite says she is tucked up in bed “by 10pm or earlier” and prefers sipping hot water and lemon juice to knocking back the fizz in a glitzy London nightclub.
Like many women her age, Tamara has also been dealing with the effects of the menopause, which has sapped her energy levels and seen her sex drive dwindle.
“I’m just a bit flat,” says Tamara, who has been married to Italian construction heir Giorgio Veroni for 15 years.
“Your libido, of course, goes down.
“Having sex is not a problem but you’re just not thinking about it 24 hours a day.
“I don’t wake up having fabulous sexual fantasies, much to my husband’s dismay.
“He thinks I’m the only girl in the world who doesn’t.”
She has gained weight too, but says: “That’s partly my fault because I don’t want to work out.”
Tamara, who is mum to Anouska, 35, from a previous relationship, shares daughter Violet, 13, and eight-year-old son Vero with her husband.
Raising them has also proved a bit of a passion-killer.
She says: “Our little boy sometimes doesn’t sleep in his own bedroom, he likes to sleep with us.
“Of course, you’re not going to be doing anything if your child’s in the bed.
BOOZY NIGHTS
“But when you’ve been together for 20 years, is it the same anyway?
“It’s not the same as when you’re 25. I’m not sure getting old is something to rave about.”
While she is known for her polished appearance, cosmetic surgery isn’t on Tamara’s agenda.
“At the minute, I wouldn’t even contemplate it,” she says firmly.
“I think I would be one of those awful girls who would end up looking quite ridiculous but thinking I look fabulous.
“I’m not as vain as everybody would imagine.
“I’m vain to a point, but I’m not one who spends hours in the bathroom looking at myself.
“My husband loves girls with plastic surgery. He thinks they’re so sexy, so he wouldn’t have a problem.
“But I just don’t like it and I’m trying to teach my girls that to be beautiful is from being a fun girl, being interesting and kind.”
She had Anouska when she was 17 and still at sixth-form college. But it did not stop her hitting the party circuit.
In the Nineties, she became notorious for boozy nights out with fellow It Girls Amanda de Cadenet, Lady Victoria Hervey and the late Tara Palmer-Tomkinson.
But she insists that her wild child tag was unwarranted.
“I’ve never been somebody who goes to bed at 10 o’clock in the morning,” she says.
“Even in my worst times, I liked to be home by 6am. I wasn’t cool with getting home when it was sunny.”
While living in Los Angeles in the late Nineties, it was her stormy love life that made headlines.
She was linked to Hollywood A-listers Sylvester Stallone and Charlie Sheen and dated Michael Stone, the drug dealer brother of Basic Instinct star Sharon.
She denies dating Rocky star Sly, but admits that she was “friendly” with Charlie, who she describes as “mad”.
The pair fell out for good after he left her to pick up a megabucks hotel bar bill.
She says: “I was friendly with him for a little bit.
“Then we were at the Cannes Film Festival and the bill came, and he’d got all these, let’s say, extra females.
“I was there working for MTV. And we were in the hotel.
“And this bill came, and because of course he’s got all his entourage there — let’s leave it there — and suddenly it was my bill to pay.
“And I’m like, ‘Are you having a laugh?’. That’s how we weren’t friends in the end. But he was mad.”
As for Sharon Stone’s brother Michael? “Unfortunately, I was with him.
“We did date,” she says.
“Sometimes you’re like, ‘Where was my brain for that?’. But there’s no bad feeling.”
After losing her mother to gynaecological cancer in 2011, Tamara co-founded the Lady Garden Foundation, a women’s health charity raising awareness and funding for gynaecological health.
She also throws her energy into her job as co-owner of The Little Black Gallery in South West London, where she works as an art consultant and publisher.
She married Giorgio in Venice in 2007 — and there have been ups and downs since.
She says: “It’s fabulous when it’s fabulous and it’s dreadful when it’s dreadful. It’s definitely not vanilla.
“Italians are different. You’re treated like a queen. You’re not allowed to pay for anything.”
While that might sound appealing on paper, Tamara got a glimpse of Giorgio’s hot-headed nature early on in their relationship, when she had made the mistake of paying for lunch when he went to the loo.
“I thought I was being so helpful and sweet and nice, but he went ballistic,” she recalls.
“He just went mad. Mad. He was like, ‘Don’t you ever do that again. How dare you. You are the woman, I am the man.’
“He still says that sometimes. He’s quite old-fashioned.
“The man can behave how he likes, and the woman has to behave like a woman.”
The kids have been on the receiving end of Giorgio’s hot temper, too.
She says: “My husband found out that the children knew how to order Deliveroo on their own. He went mad.
“One time, we even had to hide it because it arrived and we told him we hadn’t ordered it.
“We hid it in an ice bucket on top of the fridge.”
Despite being in great shape, Tamara, who became a grandmother when Anouska gave birth to daughter Luna Mae in 2018, is critical of her body.
“I look much better with my clothes on,” she says. “I was never looking good in a bikini, I assure you.
“I definitely could be a little bit more active. I like to walk for an hour a day, and when I’m on holiday, I swim or I ski.
“I like to do Pilates, but I just don’t enjoy going for a run.”
While she won’t leave the house without her mascara, Tamara has kissed goodbye to the glam, heavy make-up of her twenties.
“When you’re young, you put so much stuff on.
“But as you get older you start taking it off,” she says. “I don’t want to look like I’ve got tons of make-up on.”
She now maintains her youthful looks with twice-weekly trips to a cryo-chamber — a body-cooling treatment that is said to slow cell metabolism and promote muscle recovery.
“I really love it,” she says. “I go in the sauna for half an hour, then I take a cold shower every five minutes.
“And then I go into the cryo-chamber.
“It’s freezing cold — it’s minus 18 or something — and you go in just wearing your underwear and socks.
“It freezes you and it’s really good. “I do like to have a cryo- facial, too.
“There’s nothing more unbelievable. It’s non-invasive and you feel fabulous.
“And, of course, you look good afterwards.”
- For information about the symptoms of gynaecological cancers and how you can raise awareness of them, see ladygardenfoundation.com.