Mary Portas unrecognizable after ditching iconic bob and ‘terrible’ divorce
MARY Portas rose to fame as the Queen of Shops thanks to her documentaries and best-selling books – and of course her iconic Lego-esque red bob.
But the 63-year-old, who has raised £30million for Save the Children, debuted a new look on Wednesday after being appointed OBE for services to retail, broadcasting and charities.
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Fans likely did a double take after seeing her accept the honor at Windsor Castle, with the television personality embracing her natural gray hair in a longer cut.
After appearing on Channel 4’s Richard & Judy chat show in 2005, Mary has appeared regularly on primetime television and secured lucrative deals through books, TV and private engagements.
She ran four series on the BBC between 2007 and 2010, before jumping to Channel 4 with Mary Portas: Secret Shopper, which followed a similar format.
Most of her TV work sees Mary visiting both independent shops and major chains in an attempt to improve their fortunes with her expert advice.
She rose to prominence for her expertise in visual merchandising and retail strategy, which manifested during her television career.
But it wasn’t all sunshine and roses for the Watford-born presenter.
In 2019, she split from her fashion consultant wife, Melanie Rickey, describing the divorce as “completely awful” in an interview. The guard.
“I got divorced, I had to sell my childhood home, I had to reset my family with this young son, find another home and figure out how things were going to work,” she candidly shared.
After 17 years together, the couple were forced to sell their £5 million home in London’s posh Primrose Hill and move into separate houses nearby.
At the same time as her marriage broke down, lockdown hit and cost Mary’s consultancy business “hundreds of thousands” of pounds.
Mary ditched the bob during the Covid-19 pandemic after discovering she couldn’t go to the hairdresser to maintain her electric color during lockdown.
For a long time, my red bob was ‘me’. When I was Queen of Shops, that haircut defined me
Maria Portas
“My red bob was ‘me’ for a long time,” she shared on Instagram in May last year.
“When I was Queen of Shops, that haircut defined me.
“But then came Covid, and no visits to the hairdresser, and the bob grew out and the color faded.
“At first I panicked a bit; who was I without the bob?
“But then I realized that this was actually an opportunity for the outside of me to change to reflect what was happening inside.
“When my hair started to change in the first dark days of Covid, I had written Work Like A Woman, I started writing Rebuild and I had changed so much of my personal mindset.
“And so I embraced my new look.”
She urged others to “play, experiment, try new things and have joy” as they grow older.
“Find the look on the outside that matches the richness of all the layers on the inside,” she said.
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