EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Susannah Constantine says a photoshoot with 1st Earl of Snowdon hurt her

Susannah Constantine fondly regarded Princess Margaret as her surrogate mother while dating her son, David Armstrong-Jones, for six years in the 1980s.

Still, the TV presenter clearly doesn’t have the same affection for his father, the first Earl of Snowdon.

For she has described celebrated photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones as an “asshole” who treated her so badly when she posed for him at a photo shoot that she required clinical treatment.

“Remember what a jerk he was?” she asks makeup artist Mary Greenwell, who also worked on the shoot.

“I loved that shoot, except for the fact that I had to see an osteopath afterwards because he had to make me sit up,” she says in her podcast My Wardrobe Malfunction. “He would say, ‘Judge – sit up straighter, sit up straighter and elongate your neck.’ And then he kept asking you [Mary] to put on more and more make-up. I felt like he really didn’t like what he saw, and I turned into something of a pantomime lady.’

In a puzzling response, 61-year-old Greenwell tries to explain Snowdon’s behavior by telling the former What Not To Wear host: “I have a soft spot for him. He was often under pressure to be something he was not. I try not to hold on to the bad memories.’

Susannah Constantine (right) fondly regarded Princess Margaret (left) as her surrogate mother while dating her son, David Armstrong-Jones

The royal couple finally divorced in 1978 after years of disagreements and infidelities on both sides – the first Royals to divorce since Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon in 1534

The shortcomings of the late Lord Snowdon were vividly portrayed on screen in the hit Netflix drama The Crown. In one scene, Princess Margaret, played by Helena Bonham Carter, is seen discovering a note from her husband that reads, “You look like a cheap pantomime lady.”

According to Margaret’s close friend Lady Anne Glenconner, this is an accurate reflection of Snowdon’s behavior. She revealed in her memoir that he often wrote harsh notes to his wife and left them for her to find when she was alone.

“She told me, for example, that she stopped opening her chest of drawers – she had her maid do it instead – because Tony had developed a habit of leaving nasty notes in it,” Lady Anne wrote. “One of them said, ‘You look like a Jewish manicurist and I hate you’.”

The aristocrat added, “Everyone she had ever met had always treated her with the utmost respect. Except Tony, who was spiteful in creative ways and liked to write mean little one-liners that he hid in her glove drawer, or tucked into her handkerchiefs, or in books.”

Snowdon, who died in 2017 aged 86, became the de facto official photographer of the Royal Family after marrying Queen Elizabeth’s younger sister. The couple finally divorced in 1978 after years of disagreements and infidelities on both sides. They were the first royal couple to divorce since Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon in 1534.