Trinny Woodall breaks down recalling how she told daughter that her father took his own life

Makeup mogul and What Not to Wear star Trinny Woodall has broken down in an Australian interview after describing the moment she had to tell her daughter Lyla that her father had died.

Trinny, 58, sat down with journalist Jessica Rowe for an episode of The Big Talk Show on her recent trip Down Under to promote her skincare and makeup range Trinny London.

She came up with the idea of her stackable cream makeup products at the age of 50, around the same time her ex-husband Johnny Elichaoff, who had battled an addiction to painkillers for 20 years, fell to his death from a car park roof in 2014.

She came up with the idea of her stackable cream makeup products at the age of 50, around the same time her ex-husband Johnny Elichaoff, who had battled an addiction to painkillers for 20 years, fell to his death from a car park roof in 2014

Trinny described how she would co-parent with Mr Elichaoff from Lyla’s third to her sixth birthday, leaving on a Sunday to go and work on her famous fashion show and returning on Friday to spend the weekend with her daughter

Trinny described how she would co-parent with Mr Elichaoff from Lyla’s third to her sixth birthday, leaving on a Sunday to go and work on her famous fashion show and returning on Friday to spend the weekend with her daughter.

It was the only way the businesswoman could see that the family would be able to financially provide for their daughter.

‘When I was 50 Lyla’s father died under tragic circumstances. I had stopped doing TV. I didn’t have an income. I was living off the residue of a couple of books,’ Trinny said.

It was during this year that the idea for Trinny London’s makeup range went from a pipedream to a reality.

‘I remember I was at the funeral of my husband and afterwards I had people around to my house and I had some very good friends and they said “Trinny we know you want to start this idea but you need to be responsible for Lyla. Maybe you should get a job instead?”

‘I said to them I can’t be 60 and wish I’d started it earlier. So they said send us the business plan when you’re ready, and they were one of the first investors.’

Trinny recalled the day it happened before becoming emotional when re-living what it was like to tell her daughter Lyla, who has just turned 11

Trinny met her late husband Mr Elichaoff, 55, a former musician, in the 1990s at a rehab clinic. She has been open about her struggles with cocaine and alcohol addiction in the past.

‘We met in recovery. He had a very bad motorcycle accident and he had taken painkillers… every year of our marriage he was in rehab dealing with that addiction,’ she said. They were married for a decade before divorcing in 2009.

‘It’s very hard to end a marriage when it’s not like someone has gone off with somebody else. It’s more of a sense of responsibility that you need to take ownership of the decision.

‘But we were good after that. We would speak everyday and by that stage I had met Charles [Saatchi] as well. Then stuff just started to go wrong for him and he took his own life.’

Trinny recalled the day it happened before becoming emotional when re-living what it was like to tell her daughter Lyla, who has just turned 11. 

Telling Lyla (pictured) about her father’s death was one of the hardest days of Trinny’s life

Trinny met her late husband Mr Elichaoff, 55, a former musician, in the 1990s at a rehab clinic. She has been open about her struggles with cocaine and alcohol addiction in the past

‘There’s an amazing woman called Julia Samuel and she wrote a book called Grief Works and she actually worked with William and Harry when their mum died,’ she said.

‘She was just known to be that fantastic person and she happened to be a friend of my sister. And the day it happened, my sister said, I’m going to call her. 

‘Lila was at school and the police had come around and I just said, I don’t know how to tell her. So Julia came around and then she said “just say he had a heart attack in his head”.

‘So she came home from school and there’ll be, oh, I always get upset about this. She came home from school and I took her upstairs and I told her. She let out this scream like an animal. And I remember I really hugged her, you know, when you have a child feeling pain, you really hug and I just sort of said to her these words Julia had told me and that was the hardest thing I’ve had to do in my entire life.’

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Trinny launched her brand at the age of 53 after bootstrapping the business

Mr Elichaoff was previously rock drummer with the group Stark Naked and the Car Thieves, who toured the world supporting U2 and Siouxsie Sioux during the 1980s.

But he soon gave up the rockstar lifestyle and became a financial adviser and eventfully appeared on Channel 4 Four Rooms as an antiques dealer.

Johnny and Trinny married in Knightsbridge in 1999 at St Columba’s church where Miss Woodall was christened, her parents had married and her grandfather was buried.