Horror ops, plied with booze at 7 & scissor attack on mum… Toyah Willcox’s rise from ‘violent’ childhood to rock icon
SHE is the ultimate Eighties punk rock princess who is now causing a storm on Strictly Come Dancing.
While Toyah Willcox, 66, received the lowest score on the hit BBC show last weekend it may be too soon to write her off – because bouncing back from difficult spots is part of her DNA.
The Birmingham-born singer managed to carve out an incredible career in music that spanned nearly 50 years – despite a series of shocking struggles during her early years.
Toyah was exposed to alcohol at a very early age, had extremely rebellious teenage years and faced multiple health issues after being born with a twisted spine.
After leaving school with one O-level, in part due to having undiagnosed dyslexia, she rose high in the music industry – achieving eight Top 40 singles and releasing 20 studio albums.
Toyah’s hits and acting career saw her rake in a whopping £12million – and now she’s exposing herself to a new generation of fans on Strictly.
While it’s been a rocky start for her and dance partner Neil Jones, with a low score of 12 for their tango, she will undoubtedly come back fighting this weekend.
It won’t be the first time she’s overcome setbacks in a turbulent life that might surprise many watching her in the glitzy show.
Ten years of ops
Toyah was born in Kings Heath, Birmingham. Her father, Beric, owned a successful joinery firm and had three factories.
Mum Barbara was a professional dancer but gave up her dreams when she had Toyah’s older siblings.
Financially, her family were very comfortable and she attended private schools.
But she was born with a twisted spine, a clubbed right foot and one leg shorter than the other – as well as shallow hip sockets – and her first ten years of life were spent in and out of hospitals.
She had to undergo years of surgery and physiotherapy to help her relearn to walk. Due to having an operation on her feet, Toyah had to sit her O-levels a year later.
In an interview with The Guardian, she said: “My early family life was incredibly happy but I was very, very protected and very much living in a bubble.
“I was born with my legs bent inwards and clawed feet. I always remember family Christmases because my 27 December physiotherapy appointment was looming.
“I’d be taken to the specialist where Mum was taught how to give me physio because I was told I was going to grow out of what I had.
At school, Toyah was targeted by bullies because of her frailty, her lisp and dyslexia. She left school with just one O-Level in music.
Recalling a time when she had enough of the torment she suffered at the hands of bullies, Toyah said: “I went through a period of phenomenal realisation quite early in my life, which you do when you lay in bed awake at night.
“I thought ‘no, noone’s going to hurt me anymore’.
“The next day I went in and I smashed that bully full in the face. And nothing but a reputation of fear followed me after that. It was a remarkable turnaround.
“And I actually spent my puberty being very violent. Physically violent.”
At home, her family life was not as rosy at it appeared to be. She describes her father as a “nutcase” who gave her her first alcoholic drink after he lost his fortune when she was just a child.
I won the equivalent of the Brits’ best female singer, I phoned my parents to tell them I’d won and my mother said, ‘Well, don’t boast. It won’t last for ever’
Toyah Willcox
“We were a very physical family”, she explained. “My father – when I say he was a nutcase – he was at one point a very heavy drinker.
“When I was about five he lost everything overnight, he went bankrupt. Lost the lot. [He] would ply me with wine age 7.”
Toyah’s father was strict and would often physically punish her and her siblings when they got out of line.
She said: “My father went through a stage where he’d line us up every Friday and cane our hands if we’d been naughty. And this was mainly to pull my brother into line.
“My brother is five years older and my sister’s eight years older. He would use a little bamboo cane which my brother saw most of.
“Because I was the one struggling with walking and dyslexia I always got off lightly, which the other two really resented me for.”
‘Never forgave me’
Although Toyah says she idolised her father, she had a complicated relationship with her mother.
In the Guardian interview, she added: “From an early age, my mother and I never got on. My sister put it quite wisely that Mum never had a good word for me; it was only criticism.
“I can remember in 1982, I won the equivalent of the Brits’ best female singer, I phoned my parents to tell them I’d won and my mother said, ‘Well, don’t boast. It won’t last for ever.’
“She was the one person that made me address suicide on a regular basis.”
Their relationship was so bad that it even turned violent. She admits she once beat up her mother.
Toyah said: “I was doing the end of term show and I looked out into the audience and there was my mother. I hadn’t invited her. I was in an absolute rage.
Toyah Willcox's career timeline
From punk princess to chart-topping diva
Toyah burst onto the scene in the late ’70s, a dynamo of dyed hair and fierce attitude, ready to shake up the establishment. With her distinctive voice and theatrical flair, she quickly became the poster girl for a new wave of punk rock. Her band, simply named Toyah, smashed onto the charts with hits like “It’s a Mystery” and “I Want to Be Free,” catapulting her into the limelight and turning her into a household name.
A rebel with a cause
But Toyah wasn’t just about the music; she was a symbol of empowerment and defiance. Her boundary-pushing fashion and outspoken persona made her a role model for a generation of young fans looking for a voice that resonated with their own desire for freedom and self-expression. Whether she was rocking the stage or taking on roles in film and TV, Toyah embodied the spirit of rebellion and creativity.
From stage to screen and back again
As if dominating the music charts wasn’t enough, Toyah’s talents spilled over into the world of acting. She dazzled audiences with her performances in cult classics like “Quadrophenia” and “Jubilee,” proving that her star power was unstoppable.
The comeback queen
Just when you thought she’d done it all, Toyah staged a triumphant comeback in the unlikeliest of ways. Her recent collaborations, including a viral YouTube series with husband Robert Fripp filmed inside their country home, have shown that Toyah’s creativity knows no bounds and that she’s still as relevant and riveting as ever.
“At this time, she was doing everything she could to make friends with me. But every effort she made, made me feel worse towards her. Made me feel more put upon and trapped.
“So to see her in the audience, smiling and supportive, I could cry thinking about it now… I got home and I just punched the hell out of her.
“I went for her with a pair of scissors and she never forgave me for that.”
Their relationship remained frosty until the death of her father in 2009.
“Everything changed for my mother when my father died and I saw the moment it changed,” she recalled.
“He had just been taken to A&E and mum was cleaning the house.
“I realised she’d gone into automatic. I said, ‘Mum, Dad’s dying. Don’t let him die alone.’ For the first time in my life with her, I saw the light go on – she was 79.
“The last two years of her life were utterly remarkable. She didn’t directly apologise for how she had treated me but the apology came in another way when she was dying.
“She had started screaming for me. I got there and she was still conscious and said, “Oh thank God, you’re here,” and held my hand. That’s the only time she ever touched me from the age of 11 until the day she died in 2011.”
Unconventional marriage
Toyah has been married to musician and songwriter Robert Fripp for almost 40 years. He is a member of the progressive rock band King Crimson.
In an interview with ITV, he gushed over her saying: “When I’m not with Toyah I’m only half a person. When I’m with her I’m a whole person. She makes me completely who I am.”
Despite this, the couple have an unconventional marriage and only rarely see each other for more than 12 weeks a year.
The doctor said ‘well, we’ve got to clean your intestine out and we also advise that you’re sterilised because you’ve stated quite strongly that you don’t want children and it would protect the ovaries’
Toyah Willcox
Speaking on BBC’s In The Psychiatrist’s Chair in 1992, Toyah explained: “The man I chose to marry lives and works abroad and that’s absolutely fine by me.
“We see each other for two weeks every other two months. I laugh because I complain about this yet at the same time I must admit it allows me my career.”
She also spoke about how they both made a decision not to have kids.
“Neither of us want children but this could be a purely chemical thing of just being broody and hormonal changes but children have a huge effect on me now that they never have done in the past”, she said.
Toyah had herself sterilised in 1987 – a year after the couple married. Although she said the procedure was reversible, she insisted she had no plans of having kids.
Explaining why she got sterilised in the first place, she said: “I was very ill and I was advised.
“Part of the things I was born with and I’ve got no idea what it was, means – I have deformed intestines so I had a block in the intestines and it was pushing the womb out and causing severe infection in the ovaries.
“The doctor said ‘well, we’ve got to clean your intestine out and we also advice that you’re sterilised because you’ve stated quite strongly that you don’t want children and it would protect the ovaries'”.
Robert and Toyah first met in 1983 but it wasn’t until their second meeting two years later that he knew she was the one.
Recalling how their romance blossomed, Robert said: “I’d met her at EG Records headquarters in 1985 and I fell in love with her working on a charity album called The Lady Or The Tiger.
“I said to some friends in New York just after: ‘I have a funny feeling about this one.’ I went back to England and proposed to her within a week. My father also proposed to my mother in a week.”
Speaking about their marriage, she said: “We have a great relationship and it works because we allow ourselves our independence.
You have to twist your body – it’s all about pivoting, which is something I’ve avoided for about 30 years
Toyah Willcox
“I can just go off and do whatever I want, wherever I want without telling him and he can do the same. I got married because I had found my soul mate, not because I wanted to be married.
“We have a very interesting life and it’s very trusting and exciting and for me, that’s what’s made it work.”
The couple appear on a YouTube series called Sunday Lunch, where they perform songs together.
Health woes
As a result of her health battles, Toyah is aware that she must be careful about certain dance routines.
In footage filmed during rehearsals for her first live show with dance partner Neil Jones, she opened up about the corrective surgery she had.
Talking about the Tango, she said: “You have to twist your body – it’s all about pivoting, which is something I’ve avoided for about 30 years.
“Obviously, there are going to be moves you give me that my body is just going to go ‘stop now’.
“When I was 51, because I was born with one leg just under two inches longer than the other, I had corrective surgery to make my legs the same length but then I had to learn to walk again.”
In 2011, she said: “I’ve had a titanium hip replacement and my leg shortened, so now it’s the same size as the other one. I no longer have to wear special shoes.
“It was a miraculous job by a surgeon who treats sports stars and my hip was originally designed for long-distance female runners.”
‘Youthful appearance’
In 2005, Toyah wrote a book called Diary of a Facelift, where she admitted going under the knife for cosmetic procedures.
She said although it was life-changing for her, her decision was fuelled by the sexist abuse she received at the hands of male journalists and other TV stars after her stint on I’m A Celebrity in 2003.
Everyone, in the entertainment business gets something done at some point in their careers. It’s just ridiculous when stars deny it and say their youthful appearance is down to good genes
Toyah Willcox
She wrote: “On returning home [from I’m a Celeb], I read various derogatory newspaper articles about my jungle experience and listened to hurtful comments being made about me on a variety of TV and radio programmes.
“Jonathan Ross on his Radio Two show, which has around eight million listeners, said I looked so awful I shouldn’t be allowed to be seen on TV and that I should go away and do something about it.
“Various male writers in a number of tabloids backed up this view. The worst thing was that even though I found opinions such as these little more than an expression of body fascism, secretly I agreed with them.”
On how pleased she was with her facelift, she wrote: “Without any shadow of a doubt, my life has changed completely.
“In addition to the fact that the surgery has physically altered my ‘outer shell’ for the better, significant positive changes have also occurred within.”
She has also said: “Surgery goes hand-in-hand with the entertainment industry. Looking good is rightly or wrongly a requirement [for men and women], but I do think people in the public eye should be open about it.
“Everyone, and I mean everyone, in the entertainment business gets something done at some point in their careers.
“It’s just ridiculous when stars deny it and say their youthful appearance is down to good genes.”