Vanessa Feltz reveals her mother forced her to take black market drugs to lose weight and often called her ‘fat’
OUTSPOKEN TV personality Vanesa Feltz hasn’t held back on her latest admission which has left many shocked.
The 62-year-old broadcaster and journalist has revealed a few unsavoury truths about two people in particular that led to a lifetime of disliking how she looked.
In her new book ‘Vanessa Bares All: Frank, Funny and Fearless’, she tells how her pushy parents Valerie and Norman Ohrenstein had a strict outlook on life.
This outlook centred solely around how the TV star looked – and from a very young age.
In the book, set to launch later this month, she opens up about her yo-yo dieting, revealing her mother had put her on a strict diet when she was just nine years old, leading to a lifetime of yo-yo dieting.
Valerie, who Vanessa calls ‘My Mother, My Dealer’ in her book said she was also responsible for getting the broadcaster hooked on black market amphetamines at 20 years old in an extreme bid to make her lose weight.
Speaking to The Mirror she said: “Mostly they didn’t like the way that I looked, they said to me I was too fat.”
“They sometimes said that to me several times a week.”
“They’d say ‘Oh you’re so fat, why are you so fat? God you look terrible.”
She also admitted they would bribe her to lose weight: “They said if you lose weight I’ll buy you a dress. It was constant, which obviously wears away at your self confidence.”
While many will be shocked at her claims about her nearest and dearest she was clear to point out she didn’t think her mother had meant it maliciously: “I think my mother didn’t mean it to be horrible, she just didn’t want me to be fat. I just felt belittled, diminished.”
“They weren’t bad people. Their parenting skills could have done with a bit of sharpening up maybe.”
The TV personality went on to say that at the age of 62 she was happy in her own skin: “I’m grateful to my body and not consumed by criticism of my own body.”
The star has two daughters, Allegra and Saskia, from her 17-year marriage to surgeon Michael Kurer as well as four young grandchildren.
She said she couldn’t ever imagine not telling them how wonderful they were and how proud she was of them: “I can’t imagine shooting them down in flames, all I ever want to do is say to them you’re amazing.”
In excerpts from the book, she told how her mum had got her hooked on diet pills: “By the time I was 20, my mother Valerie had begun scoring diet pills for me from her hairdresser.”
“There’s nothing quite like taking drugs illegally obtained by your loving mum.”
“Mine was high as a kite and the slimmest at 43 that she’d been since her 18th birthday.”
“But while I felt sick, the pounds magically evaporated. I slid into a size eight. I spouted hip bones.”
She went on to say: “The side effects were nightmarish. Revved up on speed, your heart races like an overture to a cardiac arrest.”
“The thought of food makes you heave. Your breath reeks of nail-polish remover. Everything is hectic and hallucinatory. I had been slim until – vengefully early at the age of eight – puberty struck, and I started what they used to euphemistically call ‘developing’.
“My mother was horrified and whisked me to a premier paediatrician who declared: “Vanessa is in rude health. These small mounds, Mrs Feltz, are the beginnings of her breasts.”
“Breasts! At eight! My mother panicked.”
“I didn’t look like Alice in Wonderland anymore; I looked like an almost-teenager with the potential to be podgy. She was determined to do whatever it took to bring it to a halt.”