Tara Palmer-Tomkinson: Cause of Death & Autoimmune Disease

Some celebrities chase fame; Tara Palmer-Tomkinson seemed to trip over it — a 1990s ‘It girl’ whose friends included Prince Charles before the tabloids ever noticed her. When she died at 45 in February 2017 (BBC News (UK public broadcaster)), the first headlines reached for the wrong story. The coroner’s verdict was quieter: a perforated ulcer, natural causes, and a health history worth getting right (ITV News (UK broadcaster)).

Full name: Tara Claire Palmer-Tomkinson ·
Born: 23 December 1971 ·
Died: 8 February 2017 (aged 45) ·
Cause of death: Perforated ulcer ·
Known for: 1990s ‘It girl’ ·
Autoimmune condition: ANCA-related (reported)

Six facts frame the story, and only one of them matches the headline most people remember.

The pattern: the verified facts are about her death, while the vague ones are about her money and her titles.

What was the cause of Tara Palmer-Tomkinson’s death?

On 8 February 2017, Tara was found dead at her flat in South Kensington, London, at the age of 45 (BBC News). Police initially treated the death as unexplained but said it was not believed to be suspicious (Sky News (UK broadcaster)).

The medical answer took a little longer. The coroner recorded natural causes: a perforated ulcer (ITV News), which reports associated with peritonitis, the dangerous abdominal infection that follows when digestive fluids leak through the intestinal wall (Sky News). That, not any single dramatic diagnosis, is what killed her.

What is a perforated ulcer?

• A perforated ulcer is a sore that goes all the way through the wall of the stomach or upper intestine.
• Digestive fluids escape into the abdominal cavity, which can trigger peritonitis — the infection reported in connection with her death (Sky News).
• It is a medical emergency; in Tara’s case, the coroner recorded the ulcer as natural causes, not as a tumour (ITV News).

The contrast matters because the dramatic story — a brain tumour — did not survive scrutiny. Earlier reports said she had been diagnosed with a brain tumour in January 2016 (Sky News). The coroner’s findings did not identify a brain tumour as the cause of death (BBC News), and her sister Santa Montefiore was explicit: “Tara did not have a brain tumour” (ITV News).

What Tara had publicly discussed was treatment for a non-malignant growth on her pituitary gland, near the brain (Sky News). A benign growth is not the same as a brain tumour — and neither was the cause of death.

The implication: the correction does nothing to soften the loss. It just means the medical story that dominated the headlines was different from the one that ended her life.

The coroner’s verdict corrected the public record, even if it could not undo the years of speculation.

Did Tara Palmer-Tomkinson have children?

No. She never married and had no children, and the retrospectives published after her death pointed the same way (Daily Mirror). Her sister Santa Montefiore became the family’s public voice in the days that followed (ITV News).

Who was Tara Palmer-Tomkinson’s partner?

• Comedian Frank Skinner: the most publicised relationship of her later years, covered at length in the Mirror’s retrospective of her life (Daily Mirror).
• Other high-profile names: tabloid coverage linked her to a string of famous figures, though none of those relationships ended in marriage or children (Daily Mirror).

Her relationship with Skinner happened in the early 2000s, at a point when her private life was a reliable tabloid fixture (Daily Mirror). It did not lead to marriage.

What this means: her private life stayed a blank page the press loved to fill. There were no children, no husband, and no tidy ending to the story.

What was Tara Palmer-Tomkinson’s net worth?

The useful answer is that her net worth was never a verified public number. The official process ended quietly: a post-mortem found natural causes, and no inquest was held (Sky News). Every number attached to her name is a press estimate, not an accounting (Daily Mirror).

The steadier ground is where the money came from. She grew up in a wealthy landed family — the same background that put her father on the ski slopes with Prince Charles (Sky News) — and she turned her socialite status into television work and endorsements (Daily Mirror).

How did Tara Palmer-Tomkinson earn her money?

• Television: she became a familiar face on reality TV, including I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! in 2003 (Daily Mirror).
• Brand work and appearances: the ‘It girl’ era of the 1990s came with paid celebrity appearances and high-society cachet (Daily Mirror).
• Family money: she came from a wealthy family; her father taught Prince Charles to ski (Sky News).
• Later strain: coverage of her final years described financial difficulties as her health declined (Daily Mirror).

The honest answer to the net-worth question is almost an anti-climax: the number search engines want does not exist in the official record. What exists is a woman who earned from fame, leaned on family money, and faced money problems at the end (Daily Mirror).

The pattern: the more specific the number, the less reliable the source.

What autoimmune disease did Tara Palmer have?

Tara had an autoimmune disease, according to reports at the time of her death (BBC News). Contemporary coverage described the condition as ANCA-related — a category in which abnormal antibodies attack the body’s own cells and tissues, according to the Daily Mirror’s retrospective (Daily Mirror).

The reported symptoms give the clearest picture of daily life: tiredness, joint pain, and acute anaemia (BBC News). But the illness was not the cause of death. The coroner recorded a perforated ulcer, and the available reports did not identify the autoimmune condition as the cause (ITV News).

What is the ANCA-related condition?

• ANCA-related autoimmune disease means the body produces abnormal antibodies that attack its own cells and tissues instead of defending them (Daily Mirror).
• In Tara’s case, reports linked the condition to fatigue, joint pain, and severe anaemia (BBC News).
• It is a chronic, serious illness — but “chronic” is not the same as “fatal,” and the coroner’s record kept the two separate (ITV News).

What were the reported symptoms?

• Tiredness.
• Joint pain.
• Acute anaemia.

All three were reported in coverage of her death (BBC News). They are common across autoimmune conditions, which is one reason the precise label stayed so slippery in the press (Daily Mirror).

Why the illness wasn’t the cause of death

• The coroner recorded natural causes from a perforated ulcer (ITV News).
• The autoimmune illness was not identified as the cause of death (ITV News).
• The pituitary growth, the autoimmune condition, and the fatal ulcer were reported as three separate medical issues (Sky News).

That separation is easy to lose. Her health had made headlines in 2015 and 2016 — a growth on the pituitary gland, an autoimmune diagnosis, a stretch of treatment — so when she died the following year, the assumption was that years of illness had finally caught up with her (Sky News). The medical record points elsewhere: the immediate cause was a perforated ulcer (ITV News) and the infection it triggered.

For readers sorting through the health headlines, the distinction is the lesson: a chronic illness explains a life, but it does not automatically explain a death.

The medical record was clear: the autoimmune illness shaped her final years, but the ulcer ended them.

Was Tara Palmer Tomkinson skiing with Prince Charles?

Yes — and the friendship was real before the headlines got hold of it. Tara was a close friend of Prince Charles and Camilla (BBC News), and her father, Charles Palmer-Tomkinson, had taught the then-Prince to ski (Sky News). The family’s closeness, built around shared holidays on the slopes, fed a persistent press myth: that Tara was the Prince of Wales’s goddaughter (Daily Mirror).

What was their relationship?

• Close friend of Prince Charles and Camilla for years before the tabloids took notice (BBC News).
• Her father taught Prince Charles to ski, which grounded the friendship in shared winter holidays (Sky News).
• The closeness produced a durable myth: that Tara was the Prince of Wales’s goddaughter (Daily Mirror).
• Her sister corrected it after her death: Tara was not the goddaughter of the Prince of Wales (Sky News).

The “goddaughter” label was the perfect tabloid invention: just close enough to the truth to feel true. The correction, delivered by her sister, was also the measure of how real the friendship was — it had to be explicitly denied because everyone assumed it was fact.

The pattern: the royal connection was genuine — so genuine that the press promoted her from friend to goddaughter without a second thought.

Timeline

Six dates, one pattern: the fame came early, the corrections came late.

The shape of the timeline is the story: a fast rise, a long plateau, and a medical record that only made sense after the coroner’s office weighed in.

What’s confirmed, what’s unclear

In their words

“We are deeply saddened by the news and our thoughts are with Tara’s family.”

Prince Charles and Camilla, in a statement reported by Sky News

“Tara did not have a brain tumour.”

Santa Montefiore, Tara’s sister, in comments reported by ITV News

For anyone who grew up with the tabloid version of Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, the corrected record changes the picture. She was not a goddaughter, she did not die of a brain tumour, and her net worth was never a number anyone verified. What she had was a real royal friendship, a chronic autoimmune illness, and a fatal ulcer the coroner recorded honestly. For readers revisiting the 1990s, the choice is clear: retell the verified story — or keep repeating the headline the family already corrected.

Frequently asked questions