
Tamara inhabits the world of the ludicrously rich, with an enormous London mansion and a good dose of tabloid scandal.

But, she tells Louise Gannon, since having her daughter two years ago, real life is more breastfeeding in leggings than Birkins and billions.

TAMARA WEARS DRESS, Attico. SHOES, Azzedine Alaïa. Available from hewilondon.com in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital

As the midday sun warms the giant cashmere cushions in her daughter’s nursery, one of the richest women in Britain, Tamara Ecclestone, is discussing why she has decided to give away a large portion of her £5 million designer-stuffed wardrobe to raise money for charity.

TAMARA BY NUMBERS £7 million wedding (with performances by Mariah Carey and Elton John) £1 million crystal bathtub £300,000 Hermès Birkin bag collection £70,000 shoe collection £10,000 playhouse for Fifi £56 a bottle of Tamara’s Show Beauty hair perfume Advertisement

‘I just don’t need all these dresses any more and I’ve stopped wearing heels,’ she says, as she shows me just a few of the around 1,000 items she will sell through HEWI London (Hardly Ever Worn It) on behalf of Great Ormond Street Hospital. ‘People think I’m always walking around in designer dresses. I was, but I’m not any more. I don’t miss it – the dresses, the eyelashes, the shoes. I’m a mother now and I live in leggings, I never go to parties. I’m normally asleep by ten o’clock.’

In light of all those Ecclestone billions and the bizarre criminal activity (from petrol bombs to kidnappings – more of which later) surrounding her family, however, Tamara’s life seems less ‘normal mum’, more Dallas meets a Netflix drama.

And then there is the sense of surreal from the moment you walk through the vast iron gates of Tamara Towers. ‘There are definitely rooms I haven’t been in for ages,’ she says of her 57-room London pile. ‘I don’t use the swimming pool and I haven’t been in the bowling alley for a long time. I generally just use four rooms. But I like to have the space for when people come round.’

Once past the holding room (dominated by a vast photo of a stiletto heel spiked through a carpet of dollar bills), I am ushered into what appears to be an upmarket branch of Toys ‘R’ Us, where every conceivable toy is neatly stacked against the walls and the seating areas are vast, deep and covered with the finest pearl-grey cashmere.

DRESS, N/Nicholas. SHOES, as before. Available from hewilondon.com in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital

Tamara – formerly never seen without make-up, towering heels and an eye-wateringly expensive body-con dress – is sitting on the floor in a robe, intermittently playing with and breastfeeding her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Sophia, who is dressed as Elsa from Frozen.

Last year Tamara attracted criticism when she shared a ‘brelfie’ of herself breastfeeding. Katie Hopkins slammed her as ‘unemployed’ and a member of the ‘Mammary Mafia’. Others took to social media to vent their disgust.

‘Yes, I’m still breastfeeding,’ she sighs, as Sophia (known as Fifi) whips open her mother’s dressing gown for the fourth time in 30 minutes for a quick snack. ‘It bugs me that people attack me for it. It’s easy. It’s the best thing my daughter can have and I don’t have a problem with it.

‘I get slammed for it by other mums and all I can think is, “How do you actually have the time to make nasty comments about me?” I don’t judge anyone but I’m constantly judged. I don’t bother to respond any more. I just think people are jealous. I’m happy, my daughter is happy and that’s all I care about. I do exactly as I want, if that’s what she wants.’

Scott, her manager, sits protectively a few feet from his client and, outside, by a Baccarat crystal chandelier, a vast crumpled-dollar-bill wall sculpture and a giant 3D Chanel handbag, her security guards conspicuously walk the thickly carpeted corridors.

Tamara with maltipoo Teddy. JUMPSUIT, Balmain. SHOES, Gianvito. Available from hewilondon.com in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital

On the dazzling surface (Tamara is a huge fan of crystals, from Swarovskis on the phones to the grape-sized engagement ring on her finger, and the house is a mere velvety backdrop to the glittering floors and artwork), it seems as though the 32-year-old lives the dream.

The eldest daughter of Formula 1 billionaire Bernie Ecclestone (the self-made son of a Suffolk fisherman) and Croatian model Slavica Radic (the daughter of a fruit and vegetable market trader), Tamara and her sister Petra, 27, grew up in a world of private jets and Birkin handbags. (She has a collection of around 45 bags. ‘Some people collect art, I collect Birkins,’ she says, although she also has an impressive number of Tracey Emins, Damien Hirsts and Sam Taylor-Johnsons.) Even the humble leggings she ‘lives in’ are Lululemon and will set you back around £100.

Both sisters were born beautiful – Tamara dark and sultry, Petra blonde and fragile – and both married, became mothers, It-girls and celebrity tabloid fodder. These were super-rich girls who chose not to be aristocratically discreet about their huge stashes of inherited cash but to have it, blow it – and enjoy it.

Tamara, who is married to former City trader Jay Rutland, 35, lives in a £70 million mansion by Kensington Palace, and, after years in Los Angeles, Petra – who has three children by billionaire art dealer and gold-bullion firm owner James Stunt – has a £68 million mansion in Chelsea.

Tamara is a huge fan of crystals, from Swarovskis on the phones to the grape-sized engagement ring on her finger, and the house is a mere velvety backdrop to the glittering floors and artwork

Money aside, Tamara is, she says, old-fashioned, and wants to be judged on who she is, not what she is. She doesn’t have a nanny (‘I can’t bear to be apart from Sophia’) and spends most of her time with her sister and her brood.

‘Petra and I see each other every day. We spend all day with our kids in parks, at Monkey Music, swimming. We don’t really mix with other mums as most of the other children are with nannies who don’t take any notice of us. We are the crazy women, never apart from our kids. Petra is like me, she hardly ever goes out. We are both obsessed with our children. Sophia doesn’t sleep in her own room – she sleeps in the bed with me and Jay. He has just got used to it.’

I wonder if the husbands get on and whether they could all live in some multimillion-pound commune together. Tamara thinks for a moment. ‘We definitely all get on. We’d probably have huge rows every now and again but it would work. As long as it’s me and Petra, everything is fine.’

Except, in fact, it isn’t. Deep, dark matter constantly swirls around the Ecclestone world, sticking like mud to the billion-pound fairy tale.

In the past year alone, Essex-born Jay, whom Tamara married in a £7 million celebration after getting engaged just a month after meeting him, was cleared of allegations of assisting a drug dealer escape the country. Petra’s husband James, 34, meanwhile, had the offices of his gold-bullion firm searched by police in September (he alleges he is a victim of theft). His brother Lee, 37, was found dead at their parents’ home in Surrey shortly before the raid, and a petrol bomb was thrown at the house James shares with Petra.

Tamara with her daughter Sophia and husband Jay, left, and with her mother Slavica

Just this summer, Brazilian kidnappers threatened to behead the mother of Bernie’s 38-year-old wife, Fabiana Flosi, unless he handed over £28 million. He didn’t, and she was found unharmed nine days later. ‘All my friends know I wouldn’t pay a penny for my mother-in-law,’ 85-year-old Bernie joked later.

Tamara with her father Bernie and sister Petra

I ask if Tamara was upset by the kidnapping. ‘No,’ she replies sharply. (She and Petra didn’t attend her father’s wedding to Fabiana in 2012.) Then she adds: ‘All it did was make me think about my own daughter’s safety. Even when we go to the park we have security. I have someone with me all the time. I can’t even think about anything like that happening to my family.’

She doesn’t want to talk about it any further. Neither is she up for discussing her brother-in-law. Tamara is used to compartmentalising difficult situations. A self-confessed daddy’s girl, she had to deal with the fallout from her parents’ split after 24 years in 2009, which she describes as ‘the darkest period’ of her life. When Bernie began dating his current wife, Tamara only found out about the relationship in the newspapers. It was not a good start.

At the time she told me: ‘I guess I don’t have to ask his permission for who I date and I’m 27, so why should he at 80? But I was really upset. I think I always hoped my parents would get back together and yes, I threw my toys out of the pram. I didn’t want to meet her because I felt it must be awful for Mum. I have met her since at his birthday but she’s not someone I’d go shopping with. I can’t help the way I feel.’

In a twist on the Cinderella story (let’s call it Blingerella), Tamara (who has certainly never had to sweep any floors) keeps a civil distance from her stepmother but her father remains her hero.

Tamara, who is married to former City trader Jay Rutland, 35, lives in a £70 million mansion by Kensington Palace

‘My dad is just incredible,’ she says. ‘He came from absolutely nothing and built this Formula 1 empire. He is rich enough never to work again but for him it’s not about the money, it’s about passion, and he’s still first in the office at 7am. He wasn’t around like my mum was because of his work, but when he was with us he was totally there. As a teenager he’d come with me to Miss Selfridge and wait while I tried on clothes and tell me things were too short most of the time. He is my hero.’

Tamara's treasures HIGH-STREET SHOPS? Zara, Gap and Topshop. BEAUTY ESSENTIALS? Show Beauty dry shampoo and Palmer’s Cocoa Butter. GOOD BOOK? The Tiger Who Came to Tea, or anything with Peppa Pig. SCARIEST THING YOU’VE DONE? Give birth. HOW DO YOU RELAX? When I put Fifi to bed I lie alongside her and snooze. It’s so relaxing. GUILTY PLEASURE? Any Real Housewives reality show, particularly Beverly Hills and New Jersey. MOTTO? Don’t sweat the small stuff. DESCRIBE YOURSELF IN THREE WORDS Loyal, sensitive and slightly bipolar. Advertisement

What about Bernie the grandfather? ‘He’s a really good granddad,’ she says. ‘He is a bit OCD so finds it difficult to cope with mess, but I took Fifi to his place in Switzerland and did baby-led weaning there. I was so anxious because there would be food everywhere, but he was very relaxed. He plays hide and seek with her.’

As Tamara builds Duplo with Fifi, there is a defensive look on her face that makes her seem vulnerable. You wonder how she deals with all that goes on around her. ‘I live in a bubble,’ she says. ‘A Fifi bubble. I look after my child and I have my business [she owns a hair-product line, Show Beauty, with products containing extravagant ingredients such as caviar and truffle]. I don’t have time for anything else.’

Yet Tamara attracts trouble – she always has. She makes mistakes, particularly with men. Her former fiancé Derek Rose tried to blackmail her for £200,000; another ex, Omar Khyami, cheated on her and they later ended up in court in a dispute over the ownership of a £380,000 Lamborghini Aventador Tamara had given him. (She now has a bespoke Range Rover with ‘Tamara’ emblazoned on the bonnet.)

Her wealth provokes envy. She was recently shamed on social media for pledging £2,000 to a schoolfriend, Rosalie Marshall, hoping to raise £55,000 for cancer treatment. ‘I am damned if I do, damned if I don’t,’ she says. ‘I do things for charity people don’t even know about. It hurts but I try not to let it get to me.’

It clearly does. We talk about how she felt when her husband was accused of helping a drugs kingpin evade the law. The media was full of stories claiming the couple had split, that Bernie insisted his daughter cut ties with Jay, and about how foolish she had been to marry him so fast. She has never – until now – publicly spoken about it. ‘It was awful,’ she says. ‘I chose not to talk about it because it was so difficult. I knew everyone wanted me to fail, that people were saying they knew we wouldn’t last.

‘A marriage is not smooth sailing, but I am a grown-up and I know what I’m doing. The most important thing to me is loyalty. I have never questioned Jay’s loyalty, and I am loyal to him. It’s also important to show my daughter that you have to be true to yourself and to those you believe in.

Tamara and her husband Jay Rutland enjoy staying at home and having a few friends round for drinks in the garden (above)

The artwork above the fireplace is a Tracey Emin original and was a wedding present from Tamara's younger sister Petra Stunt

‘Jay is a good husband, a good father. He sticks up for me when people lay into me. I love that he is so protective of me and Fifi. I believe you have to make a marriage work.’

She pauses: ‘I have a lot of money. I’m incredibly lucky. But having money doesn’t stop you getting hurt. I’ve had my heart broken in the past, people have damaged me. Being able to go out and buy a Birkin bag doesn’t make the pain go away. Bad things happen and you have to deal with them. Everybody does.’

There is no question that Tamara’s heart is in the right place despite her tendency to avoid certain realities. She is embarrassed to admit she didn’t vote in the referendum, ‘but my mother is from Croatia. I believe immigrants who do well here and support the economy should stay.’

When Tamara and Petra were growing up, their mother Slavica insisted they did normal things such as cleaning and going to Brownies, and would take them back to her homeland (the sisters speak fluent Croatian), where they would sleep on the floor of their grandmother’s flat. Bernie, who spoilt his daughters mercilessly, would occasionally withdraw pocket money. (‘We never understood it was good for us,’ she says.)

Sophia has everything, from an iPad – she watches films on it when she goes to meetings with her mother – to a £10,000 doll’s house modelled on their home, to a maltipoo, Teddy, with fur the colour of demerara sugar.

The Ecclestones like to have friends over for dinner; this remarkable dining room seats 12

The formal living room in the house - just one of its 57 rooms - where Tamara and her husband entertain

Does Tamara ever feel guilty about how much her daughter has? ‘I don’t,’ she says. ‘I can give her anything she wants, but I know the biggest gift is nothing to do with money, it’s just to be with her. I chose not to have a nanny; to be the one changing her nappies, taking her to the park, feeding her and putting her to bed. I don’t judge myself except as a mother and I think I’m doing a good job as she is happy. I don’t have maternal guilt because I have nothing to feel guilty about.’

I ask her how she feels about sending Sophia to school. ‘I’m terrified,’ she says. ‘Part of me wants to home school her, but I know she has to go. I never want her to be hurt, but it’s going to happen. Life is cruel and she will have to learn to cope. It breaks my heart.’

Tamara wants more children. ‘My ideal number is three,’ she says. ‘I had a caesarean section with Fifi because I was terrified of the pain, but next time I want a natural birth. I want to enjoy having just Fifi for a while longer, but there will definitely be more. Being a mother is the best thing that has happened to me and I’m doing it as well as I can.’

I point out that she is, however, fortunate to be in a position to do whatever she wants. She nods. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m lucky. I know it’s not like this for everyone.’

The family can relax by the indoor pool or the hot tub next to it. Backlit onyx enlivens the room

Jay Z: The lobby where guests sign the visitors' book on the right of the table as they enter the magnificent house

A big part of the reason she is donating her clothes to Great Ormond Street (she is a long-time champion) is because she wants to help parents and children – she also supports children’s charities Starlight, Caudwell’s and Children in Need. For the past ten years, she has been a regular visitor there, although she admits since having Fifi ‘I can’t bring myself to see little ones in pain. It’s important not to cry and I know I’d dissolve in tears right now. I want to go but I want to do it right.’

Tamara has teamed up with HEWI creator Sharon Wolter-Ferguson to donate around 1,000 items from her wardrobe to raise funds for the hospital. During the YOU photo shoot, she laughs as she poses in looks from her wardrobe, including a stunning pair of silver Alaïa heels, a sleek black Balmain jumpsuit and a sexy pink lace-up dress by Ronny Kobo. ‘These are from my old life,’ she says. ‘I love them and I still enjoy getting dressed up – it’s just that I’d always rather be home with Fifi. Nothing compares to being with her.’

Sharon, whose site is aimed at women who love designer fashion but also want a bargain and the opportunity to buy and sell their clothes online, says: ‘Tamara is really passionate about doing something to help children. She is an incredible style icon in her own right and has the sort of wardrobe HEWI women love.’

Whatever is going on in Tamara’s life, this is something good she can do. ‘I love the idea that I’m raising money and hopefully giving other women out there enjoyment from my clothes. I’ve had fun in them. I hope someone else does and all of it is for a good cause.’

The Tamara Ecclestone sale in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital begins today on hewilondon.com. Designers include Balmain, Azzedine Alaïa, Alexander McQueen and Chanel