In the spotlight: But is Tara on the edge? Fame Academy has given her career a much-needed kiss of life. But after a string of tearful and increasingly erratic TV performances this week, even her friends are asking...Is Tara cracking up? No doubt there was a perfectly innocent explanation. After all, one only has to glance at Tara Palmer-Tomkinson's rake-thin frame to ascertain that she has been known to skip the occasional meal. Nevertheless, eyebrows were raised when she collapsed during filming for a television programme. This is not, however, yet another tale of her wacky behaviour, and heaven knows there have been plenty of them, on this week's charity talent contest Celebrity Fame Academy. It occurred while she was taking part in another recent reality show, Project Catwalk. "She was acting in an utterly bizarre manner," says a witness. "Between takes she was flopping about like a rag doll. She just looked completely out of it." A funny turn prompted by illness, or a worrying backward step for a woman better known for cocaine addiction than any discernible talent? Suffice to say that the show's presenter, Kelly Osbourne, herself a veteran of rehab, was particularly taken aback at Tara's peculiar behaviour. And when put into the context of her eccentric appearances on Fame Academy over the past week, is it any wonder that friends are becoming increasingly concerned about her well-being? The BBC1 programme has seen a group of 'stars' share a house and perform live every night on TV after intensive singing coaching from professionals. Money for Comic Relief is being raised via the public voting on phone lines, which dictates who remains in the show. While the programme has boosted Tara's profile, it has also revealed perhaps more than she would have wished about her rather fragile state of mind. Even the public have been alarmed, most notably after she burst into tears on screen, complaining that she felt 'weak', and then appeared to melt under the cameras, sweating buckets as she performed Elton John's hit, I'm Still Standing. "She needs to pull herself together," says one long-standing friend, who asked not to be named. "Tara has always been eccentric, but just lately she has been acting far too strangely and it is getting worrying. "You just have to watch her on television to see she is on the edge. She is more emotional than ever, and has been making bizarre demands like insisting that she is left alone away from any cameras for an hour every morning, and asking for a butler to come in and make juice drinks for her. "She even tried to get her parents to "buy" her out of the show before it began by offering money to the charity instead." It must be stressed that insiders from the show insist there is no way Tara could be abusing drugs in the house, and she is adamant that she has not used drugs for at least five years.
But one fellow contestant told the Mail this week that the former It-Girl's behaviour was "so strange that it certainly makes you wonder where the energy comes from". Whatever anyone may think, her heart-on-sleeve madcap antics have clearly struck a chord with the public. As with her appearance on I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here five years ago, viewers seem to want to see more of her, even voting her into last night's head-to-head final. How cruelly ironic it would be, then, if her latest rehabilitation in the eyes of the public should coincide with a return to past troubles. Long years of cocaine abuse have taken their toll physically - her nose collapsed last year and had to be rebuilt by a plastic surgeon. Even now, it is immediately clear to observers that it remains damaged and misshapen. But friends are more worried about the mental legacy of what one confidant describes as 'the lost years'. "Whenever I see Tara now it breaks my heart. She looks so tired and drawn," says the source. "The face which was once so vibrant and beautiful has been eroded by everything she's been through. "Everything is a struggle for Tara these days. Her career has been on a downward curve for a couple of years and she sees Fame Academy as a way of resurrecting herself. "But she is 35 years old now, and there is a limit to how much longer she can play the ditzy single society girl about town. The truth is that she is desperate to settle down and have children before it's too late, but her track record with men is disastrous. "When I met up with her recently, she was saying that she can't believe how her career has slumped. She was worried that nobody cared about her any more and that her moment in the spotlight had passed. This is a very frightening time in her life.' So what does the future hold for Tara? Certainly from a professional perspective she is at a crossroads. Once upon a time she had a column with the Sunday Times and an open invitation to every society event in town. That early promise was wrecked by cocaine, but her successful appearance on I'm A Celebrity heralded a new dawn, with a new (albeit more downmarket) column for a weekly glossy, a radio show and a lucrative contract advertising Walkers crisps. She launched a production company with her friend and sometime lover, the pop star Duncan James, and landed a presenting job on ITV. Gradually, however, all that work has drifted away. The production company is no longer in existence, Charlotte Church took over the Walkers contract, the radio deal went after complaints that she 'rambled' on air and ITV quietly dropped her from her presenting role for the latest series of I'm A Celebrity. Last year she descended to the level of selling tawdry tales of her sex life to the newspapers, most notably lurid reports that she had flings with pop singers Robbie Williams and James Blunt (establishing the veracity of these stories is near impossible as Tara herself has changed her tune repeatedly).
"I'm mortified someone blabbed about my private life," she said at the time. "I got burnt with James Blunt and I will not talk about Robbie." Yet those who have known Tara for more than a decade say she has been "blabbing" to the press about her own affairs "since day one". One friend recalls an occasion in the mid-Nineties when she tipped off a Sunday tabloid that she would be sunbathing topless in San Tropez, for which she collected several thousands of pounds in cash. On another occasion, she arranged to be playing tennis without any knickers on at the Hurlingham Club, posed for a provocative picture and collected her fee from the paparazzo there and then. "At first it was just a giggle, but as time went by she got more and more into cocaine and really needed the money," says the friend. "Then when she came off the drugs she developed this huge need to be loved by the public. She is a lovely girl but has no real talent and is painfully aware of that, so she is always craving recognition and validation. "That's why she's doing Fame Academy. She says it's for charity - and to her credit Tara does a lot for charity - but the real reason is that she's desperate to hold on to her fame. It's pretty much all she has left." Childhood friends say that the signs of her future problems were there to be seen from the age of 11. One former school friend, who attended Sherborne School for Girls in Dorset with her, says: "Tara was self-obsessed even then - something she seemed to have inherited from her mother. "I remember she wore a brace even though she didn't need one, but she said her mum made her do it because she had to be perfect, right down to her teeth. "Her parents spoiled her rotten and she was forever coming back from the holidays saying how she had been given a horse for Christmas. "She only ever wanted to hang out with the most popular, bestlooking girls in the school. But unfortunately they were also the bitchiest people around, and Tara was the one who ended up getting hurt because, for all her flaws, she was not a nasty person. "She was an appalling judge of character but, to her credit, she never had a bad word to say about anyone." Tara's childhood was characterised by privilege and being given anything she wanted by her wealthy parents, Patti and Charles, who are famously friends of Prince Charles. Home was Dummer Grange, set in 1,200 acres in Hampshire. At boarding school she was known as Two Weeks Tara because of her inability to hold on to a boyfriend. Later, there were doomed dalliances with society restaurateur Mogens Tholstrup and Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran, then a brief engagement to PR man Kris Thykier (who, as chance would have it, is now happily married to Celebrity Fame Academy presenter Claudia Winkleman). Her most recent serious relationship, with Matalan heir Jamie Hargreaves, ended two years ago, and since then she has had plenty of time to brood on past romantic failures. "It's the story of Tara's life," says an old friend. She is utterly incapable of hanging on to a man because her charm wears off very quickly and then she turns into an incredibly needy, crazy girlfriend. "She's man mad - with the emphasis on the word mad." Fellow contestants on Fame Academy this week have been warned to beware. Friends say she had a soft spot for Radio One DJ Colin Murray, but has turned her attention towards host Patrick Kielty. More damaging than any cheating boyfriends, however, was the collapse of her relationship with her long-standing agent, Martine Montgomery. Montgomery, a skilful and tough showbiz operator, was Tara's representative for a decade and the pair were so close that many likened it to a mother/daughter relationship. With her parents in the country, Montgomery's home in Chelsea was a safe haven for Tara through some difficult times. She was not so much an agent (though her contacts landed Tara some hugely lucrative contracts) as a friend and confidante. But 18 months ago, the friendship imploded - so badly that Tara would communicate with her erstwhile friend only through lawyers. Neither has commented on the situation, but they have not worked together since. At the same time, Tara discovered that another close friend was stealing money from her, and sources say she was "badly burnt" by the experience. "It was far more damaging than any of the boyfriends who have hurt her," says one. "Tara was left feeling she couldn't trust anyone any more, and to be honest, she has never really recovered from it. "She has thrown herself into her career, but the fun has gone out of it. It's such a shame." Her current representatives say that Tara has a 'full schedule' for the remainder of 2007. Apparently her successful appearance on Fame Academy has prompted numerous offers of work. In truth, she could do with them. Other commitments include her new events management company, Three's A Crowd, a novel due out later in the year entitled Get Over It, and a number of nebulous television projects (apparently negotiations are at a delicate stage). Granted, she is hardly broke - she bought herself a ski chalet last year and is having another one built in the French resort of Courchevel. But compared to the deluge of work offers which flooded in after I'm A Celebrity, the cupboard is all but bare. With less work to keep her occupied, Tara has been a more frequent fixture on the party circuit in recent months. While she insists that she has not touched cocaine for half a decade, Tara has begun drinking again and acquaintances have seen her "looking pretty incoherent" on a number of occasions lately. Her closest friends remain petrified that she will return to the bad old days. One long-standing confidant recalls an incident in the late Nineties: "I'll never forget turning up at her flat, looking through the letterbox and seeing her passed out in the hallway in a pool of her own vomit. "Watching your friend become a hopeless junkie like that is just horrendous. Every time my phone rang I was terrified it would be someone telling me Tara had overdosed. She got over it in the end, but the problem with Tara is that she will always have terrible judgment, so we will never be able to relax. "I just wish she would get off the showbiz treadmill and settle down. But thanks to Comic Relief she is getting another fix of fame, so don't expect things to calm down any time soon."