They say every woman turns into her mother eventually. Parenting influencer Alexandra ‘Binky’ Felstead – one time star of the champagne-soaked reality show Made In Chelsea – baulks at that idea, remembering how her ‘bonkers but brilliant’ mum Jane prepared her for adulthood.
No subject was off-limits, she recalls, including sex. When Mummy Felstead (as fans of the show know her) suspected her youngest daughter, then in her late teens, was on the verge of losing her virginity, she ‘didn’t bat an eyelid’, says Binky. ‘In fact, she put condoms on the pillow. You know, in case it was going to happen.’
Binky – now herself a mother to India, eight, Wolfie, four, and Wilder, two – can’t quite see herself replicating that parenting style. ‘I probably won’t be going that far with India, but my mum is one-of-a-kind,’ she laughs.
It turns out that Binky has her mum to thank for her entire career as an influencer.
Other members of her (very respectable) family were appalled when Binky came home and said she had been offered the chance to star in something as crass as a reality show, even if it was set on the gilded streets of Chelsea and featured a cast of trust-fund boys, and girls with ponies. Her mother encouraged her to give it a whirl.
‘My brother didn’t want me to do it,’ she remembers. ‘He tried to stage a family intervention, saying: “You can’t let her do this.” My mother said: “Why not? She’s not going to be a scientist. She’s not going to be a mathematician. She’s not going to do anything.”
‘She was right. I was working as a PA at the time [for a hedge fund], but I was dreadful. I thought Bloomberg was a flower.
‘My mum saw that I should just give Made In Chelsea a go. And that was my sliding doors moment. I was in the right place at the right time.’
Binky and her three children – India, Wolfie and Wilder – in the new Binky Felstead M&S range
‘I had the most amazing childhood,’ Binky says. ‘It was very Darling Buds Of May – ducks running about the garden, chicks hatching on our Aga. My mother adored dressing us all up in sailor suits and beautiful tartan dresses’
With the right mother, clearly, because from where we are sitting now – on a sumptuous cream sofa, backstage at the launch of Binky’s first children’s clothing collection for Marks & Spencer, no less – things seem to have turned out rather well.
‘Oh my goodness, it’s my biggest career highlight,’ says the very glossy and grown-up Binky, 35, of the idea of having the nation’s children saddled with her name (in the nicest possible way).
Her childhood – at least the bits that are comforting to remember – provided the inspiration for many of her designs. Binky and her ponies grew up in what sounds like a country pile in East Sussex. Her dad Roger was a company director. Hers was a childhood of private schools, shopping trips to London, tennis lessons and skiing – with a wardrobe that matched.
‘I had the most amazing childhood,’ she says. ‘It was very Darling Buds Of May – ducks running about the garden, chicks hatching on our Aga. My mother adored dressing us all up in sailor suits and beautiful tartan dresses.’
She is sad that Jane, who lives in Fulham, can’t make it today. ‘It’s tricky now she’s in a wheelchair,’ she says, referring to her mother’s multiple sclerosis (MS), which – unbeknown to anyone – was also a part of family life, even when Binky was growing up.
Jane Felstead was not diagnosed with the neurological condition until she was in her 60s, but in retrospect she knows that there was evidence she had MS decades before. When Binky was a child, Jane lost her eyesight in one eye temporarily – a condition called optic neuritis. Then it happened again, in the other eye.
In the 15 years that followed there were other health issues, including exhaustion and muscle weakness.
Jane herself has written about suddenly losing the strength in her arms while trying to lift a saddle onto her horse. Once she recalled having to drag herself along a street by holding on to railings. She saw various doctors – who gave (incorrect) diagnoses, including fibromyalgia and depression.
Binky has revealed that her mother Jane encouraged her to take part in Made in Chelsea, despite other family members having misgivings
Binky’s M&S children’s range was inspired by the fond memories of her countryside childhood
‘I took the drugs they prescribed and I got on with it,’ she said.
It wasn’t until she was 65 – and something of a star on Made In Chelsea herself; a kind of agony aunt to the bright young things – that MS was mentioned. After collapsing on her way back from a lunch with her children, Jane booked a private appointment with a neurologist.
After an MRI scan and a lumbar puncture (‘Bupa must love me,’ she quipped), she was horrified to be faced with the results – scans showing white lesions on her brain.
‘I asked: “It’s not MS, is it?” and [the doctor] replied: “I’m afraid it is.” My aunt lived with MS so it’s in the family.’
If you ever need proof that the seemingly ‘perfect’ life of an influencer isn’t remotely perfect away from Instagram, this is it.
Today, Binky tells me that she didn’t know anything about MS until her mother’s diagnosis. Although she had witnessed her unsteadiness a few times, ‘we thought her clumsiness was about having lots of champagne’.
There was some frantic Googling ‘and it was a quick deterioration from then’.
Most of which the family have dealt with away from the spotlight, but last year, a few episodes of a Made In Chelsea spin-off called Beyond Chelsea aired on Channel 4, with viewers being brought up to date with Binky’s life.
Her mum was there, too – now in a wheelchair, still as outrageous and hilarious as ever, but needing help with very basic tasks.
‘She needs help with cutting her food,’ Binky told her Beyond Chelsea friends Lucy Watson and Rosie Fortescue. ‘She can’t go to the loo on her own, she can’t do anything on her own any more. It’s a huge amount of change.’
Today, as another instalment of Beyond Chelsea is set to air next month, Binky is candid about the impact on her life. ‘It’s miserable,’ she says of her mother’s continued physical decline. ‘But she’s strong. She’s a tough cookie.’
Has Binky become her mother’s carer?
‘Oh no, she has carers who come in. She wouldn’t want us to get too involved in that side of things. She wants to come round to ours and see the children and be jolly, and it’s exciting for her to get out of the house.’
The greatest source of sadness is that Jane can no longer lift her grandchildren – or deliver the huge bear-hugs she used to.
‘You grieve something,’ Binky admits. ‘You grieve a part of your parents. You can’t get the cuddles you used to. You can’t be cuddled and looked after. I don’t want to be all “woe is me”, but, of course, it’s incredibly upsetting. My mother’s attitude is “crack on”. It always has been.’
Jane Felstead was never a head-in-the-sand type of person when it came to medical matters. When Binky was 18 she had stomach pains and Jane insisted she get checked out. A smear test – which her mother demanded – revealed she had pre-cancerous cells, and she had a procedure to remove part of her cervix. ‘Thank God my mother did make me get checked out then. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t be a mother today.’
Earlier this year, channelling her mum’s attitude, she plucked up the courage to go and see her mother’s MS specialist to see if there was a chance she could have MS, too.
She admits it was terrifying and something that had been niggling her for some time, particularly with the knowledge that her mother’s aunt had also had the condition. ‘And I am quite clumsy, so you do worry.’
Some people wouldn’t want to know, I say. She shakes her head. ‘With three kids, I want to make sure I’m healthy and strong for them.’
While MS can run in families, it isn’t directly inherited, and there is no single test that can predict who will get it. Binky’s consultation did put her mind at rest, to a point. Although genetics can play a role, she was told ‘it’s very unlikely that I have it, because [if I did] I would be feeling something by now, having symptoms, and I’m not, so I’m keeping everything crossed’.
Binky today is a million miles from the ditsy 20-year-old who first appeared on Made In Chelsea. She’s part of a wave of influencers who pretty much grew up in the public eye, with every cough and spit of their formative adult years served up as entertainment.
She was one of the more relatable on Made In Chelsea – dare we say it, nicer and warmer than some of her bitchier co-stars – but, goodness, those days were a bit wild what with the merry-go-round of who was dating who.
She admits she cringes a little to recall it. ‘We all have our hearts broken for the first time. We all fall in love. We all make silly decisions. The difference is that mine were all in the public eye, when everyone was watching.
‘I cringe, of course. I never want my daughter to see it. I mean it was character-building. I do feel I came out unscathed, though.’
What specifically wouldn’t she want her daughter to see?
She thinks for a while, presumably about being repeatedly cheated on in front of the whole world (which she was, by co-star and then boyfriend of two years Alex Mytton).
‘I wouldn’t want her to see me being walked all over,’ she says, ‘but of course that’s what we all do, I guess, to an extent. If you’ve been hurt, or had to learn about love the hard way.’
She met India’s father, Joshua ‘JP’ Patterson, on the show, and when they both left it, she was pregnant with India.
The relationship didn’t survive, but she married Swedish-born businessman Max Darnton – the father of her two sons – in 2021.
It’s notable that Max is not involved much in her influencer career, and has certainly tried to steer clear of being filmed too much for Beyond Chelsea. ‘He’s got serious clients!’ she points out, reiterating how spicy things can get on that show – particularly if her outspoken mum is involved.
‘If my mother is talking about something revolting, he doesn’t want to be involved in that conversation. It’s not his world. It’s something I’m used to – and he’s hugely supportive – but it’s not him.’
They sound like chalk and cheese. ‘We are. I’ve got ADHD. I’ve been told I have anyway, and I’m waiting for the final diagnosis. I’m quite chaotic, doing a hundred things at once. If someone tries to get me to stick to a schedule, I go a bit crazy. He’s much more organised. He’s in charge of the logistics. I trust him to get the serious stuff done, then I come along and go: “Let’s pick the kids up from school and go glamping.”‘
Binky is great fun – no wonder the Made In Chelsea producers wanted to cast her – but her upbringing was hugely complicated, and it has left a mark.
She tells me that, to this day, she has regular therapy. ‘I think we all need to check in on ourselves. I feel lighter after a session.’
She first saw a counsellor aged 13 after her parents separated and her suddenly uprooted life ‘seemed broken’. ‘I think of those days in terms of a bull running through a china shop. Everything was smashed, everything was chaotic. It was a scary, unsettling time.’
She doesn’t want to go into too much of the detail here, but the story seems a familiar one. When her parents split, the family home was sold. Younger than her siblings by nearly a decade, she ended up with her mother, who pulled her out of boarding school after she was bullied. It was a deeply unhappy time.
‘It was her and me against the world,’ Binky says. ‘We kind of pulled each other through. It was an unusual relationship really. I’d sleep in her bed.’
Later, she says, history repeated itself to a degree, when her relationship with India’s father broke down, ‘and it was me and India against the world’. But she has since successfully managed to co-parent.
Her parents’ split, back in the day, was toxic, and there was a period when her father simply wasn’t in her life. She didn’t speak to him for a year, and when he remarried, she didn’t go to the wedding. They were reconciled before his death, however.
‘We all made up and everything was fine,’ she says. ‘He was my father. Sadly, when relationships break up sometimes the child gets in the middle and you don’t hear both sides of the story.’
Tragically, the autobiography she published in 2014 ended with the fact that her dad had been diagnosed with cancer and included a moving reference to her accompanying him to a chemo session, then coming home and wrapping him up in a blanket on the sofa.
‘I feel that we have made our peace,’ she concluded then. He passed away the following year.
She gets a little tearful today about the fact he isn’t here to toast her success, and it’s clear that whatever went on, she misses him terribly.
‘My father was very proud of me. I’d have loved him to have met my kids and [my husband] Max. He would have adored Max. But I do believe he is up there anyway, watching me and guiding me.’
What would he make of the fact she is now a parenting influencer, with 1.5million followers? She finds it faintly hilarious.
‘The older you get, the more you think “poor them” about your own parents. They had to deal with me when I was acting up, or whatever. We’ll see how I get on with my children. India is a mini me – all about dance and drama. Wolfie is hilarious. Wilder is – well, he’s exactly like his name. Wild.’
What about the tricky issue of how much of her family life to expose on social media? Her children have modelled her M&S range – and inspired the designs, ‘which is fine because you couldn’t get a more family-friendly brand’.
But on the wider issue of social media? She says she thinks their involvement will dwindle as they get older ‘and decide themselves if they want to be a part of it’.
For now? ‘This is my life and my life is my family. It would feel weird if I didn’t show that part of my life because it is me. And I’m just so proud of them. It’s hard not to show them off. Ultimately, I’m just a very proud Mummy. I just forget that I’ve got 1.5million people there when I say that.’
Binky’s M&S Kidswear Collection will be available in store and online from September 25. Beyond Chelsea will return to E4 for a second season next month.
