Tara Palmer-Tomkinson

She was the aristocratic It girl who skied with Prince Charles and went to all the best parties. But the socialite, who died earlier this year, also saw the dark side of celebrity.

- Amanda Sandhurst

This is a book I totally want to read. Not only do I want to read it, I want to live it all again,” enthuses Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, pearl earrings swinging, before rapidly changing tack. “So much has happened since that book, I mean, oh my God, that’s history!”

It’s 2010 and Palmer-Tomkinson is talking a mile a minute about her new novel Inheritance, a thinly veiled roman à clef based on the adventures of a “naughty” socialite. It seems obvious that the author is high, although she has repeatedly spoken during interviews about how unfair it is to be forever tarred with that brush: people are always presuming she’s on drugs, when in fact she gave them up long ago.

Yet here she is with a wild look in her eyes, jittery, waving her hands about like a windmill. It doesn’t help that her nose looks odd. The tabloids have been hounding her about it again, six years after they’d reported her as saying: “I’ve given myself a nose job because of all the cocaine I shoved up it.”

Palmer-Tomkinson stares down the camera and says: “The It girl died the year I went to rehab, it was years ago. That was her obituary, now I want to be taken seriously in life. I’ve seen it, worn it, bought the T-shirt ... ”

Seven years later, in February 2017, the tabloids are at her again – for the very last time. Now the obituary is literal: Tara Palmer-Tomkinson is dead at 45. At 21 she was christened the English “It girl” of her generation by Tatler magazine. Now she has left the party for good.