Page 32 Daily Mail, Saturday, August 17, 2019
The smart set’s talking about...
Rosie’s artist lookalike
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@richardaedenTV’s Susannah:
‘Bionic’ surgery
saved my sight
DISMISSED by critics as a vacuous
sleaze-fest, ITV’S Love Island
nevertheless provides inspiration for
the BBC.
I hear that a former contestant on
the dating show, Laura Crane (right),
has held talks with Corporation
high-ups about becoming a presenter
of its Tokyo 2020 coverage.
‘I’m in discussions with the BBC for
an interviewer’s role at the Olympics,’
she tells me. ‘There will definitely be
no more reality stuff for me. I want to
be speaking to the athletes after their
performances in the Games.’
Laura, 23, has a genuine sporting
pedigree: she was a professional surfer
who represented Great Britain at the
sport, which will become an Olympic
event in Tokyo. She adds: ‘And I don’t
rule out trying for the 2024 GB team.’A
S ONE of this
country’s best
known style gurus,
Susannah Constan-
tine is known for her
sharp sartorial eye.
And this week the What Not To
Wear presenter underwent surgery to
save one of her most prized assets.
The 57-year-old had been
suffering from a condition
that left her partially blind
and unable to drive.
‘I had cataracts in my
eyes and I couldn’t see,
basically,’ she tells me.
‘I went to see a brilliant
optician who detected
what was wrong.’
Susannah, whose no-
nonsense partnership with
Trinny Woodall on the
popular BBC show set tel-
evision trends, had the
operation on Thursday at the Sussex
Eye Hospital in Brighton.
‘I went through the NHS,’ she says.
‘My vision was very blurry, I was par-
tially blind. I couldn’t drive at night. I
would drive at 20 miles per hour, andevery time a car came towards me, I
would have to stop.’
Susannah (left) — who lives in Sus-
sex with her Danish businessman
husband, Sten Bertelsen, and their
three teenage children — underwent
the 45-minute procedure on her left
eye. ‘It’s not a nice experience,’ she
says. ‘Your eye is forced open and you
have all these drops that are put in.
‘The chances of it going
wrong are minuscule, but you
feel the pressure and it’s a
strange feeling — you’ve got
this bright light being shone
in your eye.’
Usually associated with
people in their 60s and 70s,
cataracts are now being
detected in much younger
patients thanks to medical
advances. The operation has
a high success rate, meaning
Susannah’s vision could soon
be fully restored.
‘It’s like having bionic eyes,’
she jokes. ‘I am starting to see clearly
now. But the slight downside is that I
look at my face and now I see all the
lines because there’d been a film
across my eye up until that point.’Will Love Island
star Laura make
waves at the BBC?
IF IMITATION is the sincerest form of flattery, Rosie
Huntington-Whiteley must be delighted that she
has a doppelganger in the beauty world.
Sofia Schwarzkopf-Tilbury (right), 26-year-
old niece of Hollywood make-up artist
Charlotte Tilbury, has caused much
confusion because of her similarity to Marks
& Spencer model Rosie, 32 (below).
‘Every time I see her I think it’s Rosie,’
admits one beauty blogger.
It’s unclear where the Schwarzkopf in
Sofia’s surname comes from, as she’s the
daughter of Dutch businessman John
Broekman and hotelier Leah Tilbury.
Wisely, she followed on the lucrative path
set by her aunt, whose clients include Amal
Clooney and Kate Moss, by becoming a
make-up artist.
‘I used to recreate my aunt’s
make-up looks on the girls in my dorm,’
says Sofia, who went to £25,605-per-year
Millfield in Somerset.
After an internship with fashion
designer Alice Temperley, Sofia now
works full-time for Charlotte.