was so scared she ‘wet herself’ on a solo flight to when she was just three years old.
The 55-year-old presenter mostly grew up in Surrey with her grandparents but in the holidays she would take an unaccompanied flight to to see her French mother Florence Kock.
‘The first trip I remember was very traumatic. I was three or four and too scared to ask for help. I wet myself on the flight,’ she told the’ travel supplement.
‘My mother would often forget to pick me up at the airport and I’d be waiting and waiting before somebody would call to remind her.’
She described the situation as their ‘normal’, and admitted her mum was ‘absolutely bonkers,.
She added: ‘That was our normal. I would stay with my Spanish grandmother, French businessman grandfather and my big sister, who my mum had when she was 16.’
By the age of 12, the Big Brother legend was going clubbing with her mum and even went out in high heels and makeup.
‘Paris was exciting, flamboyant and a bit scary sometimes,’ she admitted. ‘In my early twenties I moved there, living on Rue Saint-Martin, near the Pompidou Centre, working as a singing waitress in a jazz club.’
Davina – who has children Holly, 21, Tilly, 19, and Chester, 16 – moved back in with her father Andrew when she was 13 and stayed in contact with him until his death in March 2022 following a battle with dementia, but she never repaired her relationship with her mother.
She saw little of her, and her trips to France ended in disappointment as her socialite mum didn’t turn up to their meetings.
Florence died in South Africa in 2008, and she previously admitted she felt a ‘sense of relief’.
She explained: ‘When she died I felt a sense of relief that I could stop swinging from side to side. And I also think, “Please God, when I die, don’t let it be a relief to anybody.” ‘
She didn’t attend the funeral, but she did forgive her for the abandonment over the years, noting that she eventually accepted her mother ‘did the best she could with what she had’.
