Trinny Woodall has opened up about her ex-husband’s suicide, saying it was difficult to understand how someone so obsessed with the welfare of his children convinced himself they were better off without him.
Beauty entrepreneur and former TV host Trinny said she was only able to mourn Johnny Elichaoff six months ago – eight years after his death – when their daughter Lyla left home, leaving her alone.
Johnny, who also had a son Zak from a previous relationship, took his own life in 2014 at the age of 55.
Although it was known that he had suffered a series of failed oil investments before his death, Trinny said he was going through such turmoil that he had convinced himself that his children were better off without him – despite his hyper-vigilance over their well-being .
The former What Not To Wear presenter, 59, whose Trinny London company is valued at £180 million, told Monday’s Diary of a CEO podcast: ‘Johnny was hyper-vigilant around his children because he had been in the Israeli army and was a paramedic .
Emotional: Trinny Woodall has opened up about her ex-husband’s suicide, saying it was difficult to understand how someone so obsessed with the welfare of his children would take their lives
Devastating: Trinny said she was only able to mourn Johnny Elichaoff (pictured) six months ago – eight years after his death – when their daughter Lyla left home
“And he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, which wasn’t diagnosed until about 20 years later.
“But one of the things is also the hyper-vigilance around his children, so he was always so concerned about their well-being.
“So you’re like, where do you come up with in your head, if you’re so concerned about your children, that you can convince yourself that the best thing for your children, who you love very much, is for you to no longer be in their to live?
“And that’s something that’s so important that we can help people who find themselves in that situation – that they don’t end up in that last part of that situation.
‘It’s understanding what you need to recognize, and it’s very difficult to recognize. I didn’t recognize it. There were a lot of details in there that could have really upset me, and things that were done wrong. But you have to let it go a little.
‘You have to go through these phases and not get stuck in something that is eating you up.’
She added: ‘Anyone who has seen someone commit suicide will at some point say, ‘was there anything I could have done to stop it?’
Johnny’s death came after the couple divorced, but Trinny said they remained so close that they spoke every day until he died – but it took her eight years to grieve.
Hard to process: Trinny said he was going through so much turmoil that he convinced himself his children were better off without him – despite his hypervigilance over their well-being
Tragic: Johnny, who also had a son Zak from a previous relationship, took his own life in 2014 at the age of 55
She said: ‘We spoke on the phone every day. It took me a long time to grieve because he left a mess behind when he died, which I kind of had to deal with.
‘So it keeps you busy not just thinking about what you miss in someone. You are focused on what you need to do and you go on autopilot.
‘Probably strangely enough, I moved in March and that was the first time I remember Lyla leaving, and it was the first time in 35 years that I was alone in the house. And I mourned Johnny, all these years later.”
She added, “I guess you need space. He died, there was a mess, and then I started the business, I was living in a house that I couldn’t live in, I had to sell it for all kinds of reasons, one of them being that reason.
“There were so many types of fires I was dealing with, trying to help Lyla make it right. So that was a lot of years.
Moving: Trinny was almost in tears discussing her former husband’s death on the YouTube podcast Diary of a CEO
“And then another life change, where I just decided I wanted to live on my own, and then raised it in a way to just be able to feel something that I hadn’t really let myself feel.
‘Sometimes in life we know that we are not in that part that is strong enough to feel that feeling and move on, and we have to be in the right situation and give ourselves that breathing space to be able to feel the fullness of that feeling . without judgment or guilt.’
She said what she felt at the time was “there was nothing better in anyone else than Johnny’s bestness – and I missed it”.
“This is eight years later, but things take time,” she added.
Trinny and Johnny married in 1999 after meeting in rehab before divorcing in 2009. Their daughter Lyla is now 19.