Tara Palmer-Tomkinson’s lust for life and sense of fun was legendary, something her friend Holly Willoughby confirmed as she paid an emotional tribute to the socialite on Thursday’s ‘This Morning’.
Tara was found dead at her London home on Wednesday at the age of 45, just months after she revealed she was battling a brain tumour.
Holly described TPT as “funny, generous and incredibly kind” during the show’s opener, and shared a story that perfectly summed her up.
Holly said: “The first time I met her, and I think this sums up that ‘child like’ character and fun that she had… I was having dinner and she came over to my table and said ‘you know a very good friend of mine’ and we started chatting and as she’s talking to me she’s gesticulating with her hands and I noticed this diamond bling, gorgeous ring - and I’m like watching her hand like a magpie and said ‘your ring is beautiful’, and she said ‘oh this, this is just a bit of toot from Chanel’ and she dropped it in my champagne class and went ‘it’s yours!’... I said ‘no, I can’t take that!’ and she replied, ‘if you don’t take it, I’ll throw it across the restaurant’.
“So the next morning I wake up and I had this incredible ring on my hand, which I did say to her the next morning ‘I’ve got your ring’ and she said ‘I don’t want it back’...”
Amazing.
Holly also shared another lovely anecdote about the former IT-girl, who came to her rescue after she’d had her second child.
Holly explained: “After I had Belle, and again, this was just her kind way, and I’d just had Belle two months beforehand and had this event to go to and I was feeling quite big and dumpy because I was still breastfeeding and I was massive - and bearing in mind she was a size 6 and I was about a size 16 to 20 by that point, she said ‘come back to mine’ and we went into her wardrobe and she must’ve spent hours with me trying on all of her clothes.
“She fully kitted me out in heels, she gave me her handbag, she dressed me up and sent me off on my way to this party. [Looking at the image] That’s me wearing her clothes! It was a little black number - it was very stretchy I might add! But she was a real girl’s’ girl. She was a lovely person.”
‘This Morning’, weekdays, 10.30am on ITV.