Divorce, my mum and empty nesting: why Patsy Kensit was recently diagnosed with PTSD

From a challenging childhood to losing her mum and dealing with heartbreak, Patsy Kensit has faced her fair share of challenges throughout her 57 years. While to the outside world, she’s appeared to simply get on with life, in an exclusive interview with Good Housekeeping, she opened up about the toll it’s taken behind the scenes – and how it’s all led to her recently being diagnosed with PTSD.

It started, Patsy believes, with her mum being very ill. She was incredibly close to Margaret, who was diagnosed with breast cancer when Patsy was very young and died when Patsy was in her early 20s. They were best friends, their bond strengthened by the fact that she wasn’t really allowed to bring friends home, "just in case the police came round to talk to my dad".

When her mum died, Patsy explained that she felt as though she’d "lost a limb", though she points out that her eventual PTSD diagnosis was the result of a number of challenging events in her life.

“I’ve recently been diagnosed as suffering from PTSD for a very long time,” she says. “Not just because of my mum being so ill, but I was really sad when James’s dad [Jim Kerr] and I got divorced. And then there was the chaos of the 1990s…”

When Patsy split up with Liam Gallagher (they divorced in 2000), she said she was "immediately dumped" by many of their mutual friends. "And men move on so quickly. I mean, literally in weeks, you know?"

Patsy is also emerging, she shared, from a very stressful three years. She lost a lot of money when a lucrative skincare line she’d been developing fell through, Lennon left home and she split from the property tycoon.

“I was broken and numb,” she says. “As well as the skincare line falling apart and the broken engagement, I really struggled with the empty nest when the boys moved out…”

In the end, Patsy’s strength came from her friends. "My friends rallied round me during the past few years – they saved me. I love hanging out with them," she says, sharing how she's also dealt with having an empty nest. "I’ve really conquered empty nest syndrome – and of course, the minute I let the boys go, I couldn’t get rid of them!"

Read the full interview in Good Housekeeping’s April issue on sale now.