Sadie Frost: Kate Moss 'wild' birthday celebrations were five days of walks, table tennis and swimming

Despite rumours of an £80,000 booze bill and gigs from Florence and the Machine, Mark Ronson, Soul II Soul and Massive Attack, Sadie says it was a healthy affair

Pals: Sadie Frost and Kate Moss

Rex

Outside it’s raining buckets and I sit opposite Sadie Frost with my hair sodden and a damp umbrella seeping through my handbag.
She, on the other hand, is all glowing skin and bouncing bob. The explanation for this is the very last thing I’m expecting.

It’s just over a week since the actress, designer and one-time poster-girl for partying came back from close friend Kate Moss’s five-day 40th birthday celebrations .

Despite rumours of an £80,000 booze bill and all-night private gigs from Florence and the Machine, Mark Ronson, Soul II Soul and Massive Attack – reportedly hired for £30,000 to mark each of the supermodel’s four decades – mum-of-four Sadie says it was actually a very healthy affair.

“Kate’s party was a lot of fun. I went for the whole five days from beginning to end,” says Sadie in a girlish voice that belies her 48 years.

“We all played a lot of tennis and did healthy stuff – went in the pool, played table tennis, went for walks.

"It was just a really recreational holiday, which was nice.

“It was opposite to the image. People paint a picture about things and it’s often wrong.
"I came away feeling refreshed.”
Sadie – no stranger to headlines thanks to celeb marriages to Spandau Ballet star Gary Kemp and actor Jude Law plus her string of showbiz mates – certainly looks refreshed.
And this week wasn’t easy.
Her ex Jude, 41, appeared strained in pictures showing him outside the Old Bailey, where he’s been giving evidence in the phone-hacking trial.
Their marriage ended in 2003 but with children Rafferty, 17, Iris, 13, and Rudy, 11, they are still close.
In fact, Sadie says they talk most days.

Rex

Family: Sadie Frost and Rafferty Law

She admits her relationship to the star is vital to her, despite their difficult divorce.

“Me and Jude parent together,” she says.
“That’s what’s important. You make your decisions together... a man and a woman who are not together can still get on.”
However, after Rafferty was born, with Jude away working a lot, Sadie –who had first had therapy at the age of 16 – became severely depressed.
One day she deliberately cut her arm with a pair of scissors.
She was treated for post-natal depression but it came back.
Just before her marriage to Judge collapsed she was briefly sectioned and went into therapy again.
But today Sadie seems to have put all that behind her.
She and girlhood friend Jemima French are launching their new swimwear range for Floozie by Frost French in Debenhams, and sit before me surrounded by bubblegum pinks and ice cream cone emblems.
It’s a sunny distraction on a dismal day.
They tell me the bright vintage-style bikinis were inspired by childhood holidays to British resorts like Brighton, where they “ate gobstoppers and dropped ice cream in our laps”.
For Sadie it’s a year of big changes.
Last week she returned to the London stage after a two-year absence in a theatrical acrobatics show called Fuerzabruta.
She and Jemima are planning to re-launch Frost French as a label again in September.
And following the end of her romance with model James Gooding, 37, she’s now said to be seeing multi-millionaire Excell phone boss Darren Strowger, 47, who is a friend of Kate’s.
But she seems to get most pleasure from being a mum.

Getty

Still close: Sadie with Ronnie Wood and Jude Law

Her brood also includes son Finlay, 23, from her seven-year marriage to Gary Kemp, and she admits she runs a very modern household.
She’s close to her children’s mates encourages everyone to talk to her about sex and is happy for Rafferty – at 17 a carbon-copy of his Hollywood star dad – to be with his girlfriend at home.
She likes everyone to be open about relationships.
“There’s a lovely atmosphere in the house – there are always a lot of other kids round,” she says.
“Raff doesn’t go out so much as his friends come round to practise with him in his band.
"That’s what he really wants to do, although he’s modelling a bit and doing A-levels.
“They’re all close to me.
"Issues such as sex I would never have spoken about with my parents, but the kids are very open about contraception.
“They are not embarrassed to talk to me about any of these issues. Raff has a girlfriend who comes to the house.
"It’s better they can be open.”
“But I do worry about him a bit. Any parent does – but he is doing what most 17-year-olds do.”
Her own teenage years were more chaotic.
Dad David Vaughan was a psychedelic artist who left her mum before Sadie started school then lived in a squat next door to their house in North London.
Both parents went on to have lots of relationships and nine more children between them.
Sadie went to stage school but preferred “a comprehensive, boys, pot, make-up, leather, punk rock, cigarettes, fights and trouble”.

Kateoss' 40th Birthday

She started modelling at 15 and met Gary Kemp a year later when she was in the video for Spandau Ballet’s hit single Gold.
As an actresss she appeared in TV’s Press Gang and Casualty, the movie Diamond Skulls and most memorably she played a sexy vampire opposite Keanu Reeves and Gary Oldman in the 1992 film Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Maybe her own unconventional upbringing explains why she’s very insistent on putting her children first.
Sadie says: “The kids have to feel like they’re the priority. I probably have less time for myself now than when they were younger.
"I try to be as strict as I can but kind of lead by example. I say, ‘Let’s not do this tonight, let’s not go on our iPhones, let’s play a game.’?”
She’s more relaxed about her image too. “I used to be excessive about exercise but now I have so many jobs that it’s quite far down the list,” she says.
“It used to be six times a week, gym, yoga or pilates, but I’d rather have that extra two hours in bed.”
As we sit surrounded by Floozie swimwear, I remind Sadie that she’s often on holiday with supermodel Kate .
Surely that adds pressure to get a bikini bod?
“It doesn’t add extra pressure going away with Kate,” she insists.
“She’s an incredibly generous person. You might put something on and she’ll say, ‘Why don’t you wear this?’ and she will always share all of her things.
"She makes everyone feel good about themselves by being a loving, kind, generous person. That’s why people love her.
"And anyway, Kate is Kate, like Jude is Jude. You’re in a group of friends and you don’t think like that.”
Sadie adds: “It does get harder as you get older to wear a bikini.
"I’m not someone who likes walking topless on the beach in a pair of knickers.
“I might have a nice 70s dressing gown – I know it sounds a bit Joan Collins! But there’s no point feeling uncomfortable.
"You have one body and one life.”
Sadie hated the fact that Kate turning 40 was big news as if that somehow marked the the end of the road.
“In most countries it’s celebrated when you get to 60 or 70,” she says.
“In this country you’re past it at 30 and at 40 you’re practically dying.”
Sadie certainly seems to be entering middle age with plenty of life in her.
And if she and Kate Moss carry on partying in such an unexpectedly wholesome fashion, that can only continue.
The SS14 Floozie by FrostFrench swimwear collection features the cutest bikinis, one-pieces and beach cover-ups with the girls’ signature feminine flourishes.
Prices start from £18.50 for bikini briefs and £26.50 for bikini tops. Sizes 8-18, cup A-E. Available now in store and online at debenhams.com