Toyah Willcox has never been afraid to speak her mind, and, now she's turned 50, the former high priestess of punk doesn't show any signs of changing.

Married, but without children, Toyah makes a declaration that would horrify some women.

'I've had a face-lift, I've had a hormone implant and now I want a hysterectomy,' she says. 'My husband doesn't want me to, but I might just have one and not tell him.'

She also admits she'd like a tummy tuck and, in a shocking revelation, wants her boobs completely removed because she can't bear them.

Toyah likes to shock. She is, by her own admission, 'a bit of an attention-seeker'. During her 20s, she was the most outrageous and most successful punk rocker of her age, with her shock of bright pink hair and trademark lisp.

But she had a horrific childhood blighted by illness. Born with a twisted spine, clawed feet, a clubbed right foot, one leg two inches shorter than the other and no hip sockets, she endured years of painful operations and physiotherapy.

Five years ago, she regaled the public with a gruesome account of the cosmetic surgery she'd had done in her book, Diary Of A Facelift.

And now she is determined to prove that life begins at 50, which is partly why she wants a hysterectomy, to rid herself finally of the debilitating battle she has had to control hormonal imbalances in her body.

'My 30s were a nightmare because I was so uncomfortable. If I could have unzipped myself and stepped out of my body, I would have done. It is only recently I discovered I had too much oestrogen in my body, which meant I was permanently in physical discomfort.

'So, last year, I had a progesterone implant surgically inserted and it has revolutionised my life. It has made me a happy human being again.

'That's why I'm begging my husband to let me have a hysterectomy because it would completely get rid of all the bad memories I have of my problems with my hormones.

But he won't let me. I'd also like a tummy tuck and, if it was up to me, I would have my boobs completely removed because I can't bear them. But, again, he says "No".

That's why, if he goes away on a long tour (her husband is Robert Fripp - guitarist with the band King Crimson and an entrepreneur), I might just have it done anyway and not tell him.'

The absence of children in her marriage doesn't seem to bother her. Just months after she married, she underwent a sterilisation op because she is medically incapable of carrying a child full-term due to her childhood illnesses.

'Neither Robert nor I pine for the company of a child. I don't have any contact with children. I have one nephew who I probably see about once every five years.'

Then she instantly contradicts herself by saying: 'If something happened to Robert then I might well adopt. Robert doesn't want children, but if he died I would feel some kind of social responsibility to have a child.

'I am very wealthy and I could nurture a child very well.'

Indeed, the couple have arranged their will so as to leave their entire fortune to the establishment of a musical educational trust for children.

As a child herself, Toyah says, she and her older sister Nicola were 'actively discouraged' from having children by their mother, Barbara, who clearly resented having to give up her career as a dancer when she became pregnant at 19 with Nicola and then Toyah's brother, Kim.

Her complicated relationship with her mother may have influenced her decision not to become a mother herself. She hasn't hugged her mother since she was 12 and can't see it ever happening.

'My mother is not a naturally happy person and is very complex. She won't allow any of us to touch her. Not even my father hugs her,' says Toyah. 'And, as a family, we never kiss each other. Yet we do have a close relationship.

'Until I was seven, I was very close to my mother because I was so ill and she had to teach me how to walk and talk. But then she had another child, a little girl called Fleur, who died.

'When she came home from hospital there was a bit of a distance between us. It was never talked about again.
'My parents come from that generation where you just didn't talk about things like that. I think Mum's parents were hit by a car and killed when she was 17 - but she has never talked about it. My father doesn't even know anything about her childhood.'

Such a repressive environment may explain why Toyah herself is such an open book and so incredibly driven.
Financially, she is wealthy thanks to a series of canny investments in stocks and shares and properties in Britain, America and France.

And she is determined to get her own way - as can be seen in her decision to have a face-lift. Her husband didn't have any say in the matter.

Toyah didn't tell him she was having the operation in Paris until she had already paid for it. Then she asked him to fly from America, where he spends most of the year, to be with her when she came round from surgery.

'When the bandages came off, rather than pass out, he was there having a good look. We spent a week together in a hotel room in Paris and, to be honest, it was like the honeymoon we had never had.'

And so ended a phase in what is probably one of the most bizarre, yet enduring, marriages in showbusiness. Just seven days after they married in 1986, Robert returned to America to work and the couple have lived separate lives on either side of the Atlantic ever since.

They rarely see each other for more than 12 weeks a year.

'Ours is not a conventional marriage. The longest I went without seeing him for was for 11 months in 2000. I did tell him then it had to stop or our marriage wouldn't work and now we do see more of each other than we did.

'Neither of us worry about the other being unfaithful. When I met him, he had a reputation for being a womaniser, but that's a 30-year-old reputation, so it's not something I worry about now. As for me, men are terrified of me.

'I am the most pig stubborn, independent power player you could meet, so I just won't play any of their games.

'To be honest, all my male friends are gay. I am the ultimate fag hag!'
When Toyah had her face-lift, there were suggestions that she did it to stop Robert from straying. She dismisses the idea. 'Cosmetic surgery is not going to stop a wanderer wandering,' she says, contemptuously.

In fact, she is open about her reasons for having a face-lift. After she appeared on ITV's I'm A Celebrity, Jonathan Ross commented that she looked so awful she shouldn't be allowed to appear on television. Instead of being angry, she looked at footage of herself and agreed.

'It was a wake-up call. In this business, I accept that 95 per cent of it is about how you look, which is why I had a face-lift.'

Whether it is down to the facelift, Toyah certainly seems to be in demand. She has just finished recording an album of new music and has 20 dates left of a countrywide tour.

She is also writing for other singers and will be seen again as the mother of the prostitute played by Billie Piper in the second series of TV's Secret Diary Of A Call Girl.

Whatever issues she may have had with her parents are firmly in the past. They now live in a cottage bought by Toyah about half a mile away from her house. Her 88-year-old father, Beric, often boats down the river to see his daughter.

It is an idyllic picture - a lifetime away from her punk past and somewhere she can contemplate her next age-defying piece of surgery.

Daily Mail
June 2008