Socialite Tara Palmer-Tomkinson dies aged 45

The 45-year-old, a well-known socialite in her 20s and 30s, had spent the past year battling a brain tumour, but it is unclear whether the condition caused her death, which is being treated as unexplained.

A Metropolitan Police statement said:-

"Police were called by London Ambulance Service at approximately 13:40pm on Wednesday February 8 to an address in Bramham Gardens, SW5. A woman, aged in her 40s, was pronounced dead at the scene. Next of kin have been informed."

Tara had a well-documented cocaine addiction during her years on the party scene, and later appeared on I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!

The daughter of a former Olympic skier, she was educated at Dorset boarding school Sherborne Girls' and briefly worked in famous City bank Rothschilds. She found fame through a ghostwritten column about her lifestyle that appeared in The Sunday Times in the nineties.

The Palmer-Tomkinson family are landowners who have close links to the Royal Family, and Tara was a guest at the wedding of Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge.