Liz Jones, the high profile Mail on Sunday columnist, has revealed that she is bankrupt.
In her column published on New Year’s Eve in the Mail on Sunday, Jones, dubbed the “countess of confessional journalism” said she was “declared bankrupt in May 2017”.
She said: “I lost my house in January. I gave up my car. I lost my pony, my old dog Sam, a cat, a man, and I’ve sold everything I own. The day a man arrived to collect my 40-year collection of British Vogue was a dark one.
“I lost my identity, too. Being dynamic and successful, living in a Georgian house, driving a nice car and wearing expensive clothes was who I was.
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“I became no one when I was declared bankrupt in May 2017. I now have a personal grooming allowance of £20 a month. Let’s just say I’m not looking good.”
In the column, Jones goes on to say how she resisted taking antidepressants to help combat the burden of her financial woes.
She says: “I’ve gazed at the box from time to time. Ironically, I was too anxious to take the anti-anxiety medications, so I resisted, and thanks the Lord I did.
“I understand people need a crutch but if you can resist imbibing something that alters the chemistry of your brain, you should. I made it through the worst year I could have imagined.”
Jones said: “There was no place for a drug in what happened to me. The night before a scary meeting with HRMC, I coped with a hot bath, a glass of Cremant and Frasier.
“The best piece of advice I got all year was to make my bed every day: easy but effective.”
Jones has spoken of her financial plight before.
In 2010, when she was a columnist for the Daily Mail, she said: “I have a £15,000 overdraft limit at NatWest and a £8,000 limit at Santander. I also owe £19,000, £10,000, £1,000 and £12,000 on various credit cards, a £50,000 bank loan and a mortgage so huge I can’t bring myself to write it down.”
Jones was previously editor of Marie Claire and she has also been a staff journalist at The Sunday Times and the Evening Standard..
In the piece, journalist Deborah Ross speculated that Jones was paid upwards of £250,000 a year by the Daily Mail and Jones revealed she received between 4,000 and 6,000 emails and letter from readers a week.
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