How NOT to get over DIVORCE

Globetrotting, designer clothes and foreign flings were far more destructive than therapeutic for newly-single Gilly Da Silva

- EMMA ROSSITER

There was a time when the only bags that graced the boot of my car were Sainsbury’s carriers, but lately it’s welcomed the likes of big designer brands Mulberry, Yves Saint Laurent and Stella McCartney. The trips I took abroad were never to celebrity hotspots like Los Angeles or Mykonos, yet, in the last couple of years, they’ve been just a couple of the places I’ve frequented. And while, to most, it might seem like I have the most glamorous lifestyle and therefore must be happy, the reality is very different because loneliness and grief have surprising ways of masking themselves.

Several years ago, my life was very different. I met my husband Rui, then 30, when I was 26 and working behind the bar at a club in Lisbon, Portugal.

Rui was a producer and aspiring DJ, and we shared a taste in music. I loved travelling and partying with him at the best clubs in the world.

Eight months into our relationship, he proposed and, in 1999, we moved back to London and started our own record label. It was a risk – especially as we were competing against bigger, more established labels – but when we released Touch Me by Rui featuring Cassandra, it went straight to number one in the UK.

That was just the start of our success and, with our business doing so well, in May 2000, Rui and I decided to get married in Las Vegas. In true rock’n’roll style, our nuptials were blessed by an Elvis impersonator and we celebrated into the early hours.

Even when we welcomed our son Raffy in July 2001, we didn’t slow down. He’d come backstage at gigs with us, was the resident baby on tour, and I thought we could have a fun, fast-paced lifestyle and still be good parents.