Inside Janet Street Porter’s life from famous husbands to near-death experience

Two years after the Second World War ended, Cherrie and Stan welcomed their daughter, Janet Bull, into the world. Growing up in Fulham, the now-Loose Women star was a rebellious teen and had a turbulent childhood.

Opening up about her past on the ITV show, Janet Street-Porter revealed growing up in her household was extremely strict. With multiple rules, she’s described those times as “dreadful”.

Reflecting on her youth, she once said: “I disagreed with about 99 per cent of everything my parents said. In actual fact, they didn’t get on particularly well either!”

However, in spite of coming from a “contentious house”, Janet didn’t let anything hold her back from flying the nest and making a name for herself. In fact, she started her career in 1969, in her early twenties.

From multiple marriages, and nearly crashing in a plane, to a developing a long-standing career, Janet’s life has been anything but boring. As the ITV star celebrates turning 77 this month, Express.co.uk has decided to take a look into the life of the Loose Women panellist.

Near-death experience

Janet has spoken openly on Loose Women in the past about how she suffered a terrifying experience on a plane.

She said: “I was filming in Mexico in a four-seater Cessna when the landing gear wouldn’t come down and we had to fly around for four hours.”

The panellist revealed that the plane was flying around in order to use up the rest of the fuel it had.

She continued: “I wrote my will on a film carton, I was with my husband who was a photographer.

“Wrote a will out, sat there and waited. Cut the engine out, glided in and just landed and tipped up.”

However, as her co-star Ruth Langsford confessed she would’ve been crying throughout the ordeal, Janet stated she didn’t shed a single tear when it was all unfolding.

Heartbreaking death

Speaking about her upbringing in the past, Janet revealed she didn’t get on with her younger sister Patricia until they started to get older.

Admitting they didn’t have a lot in common initially, she confessed to once drawing a line in their bedroom and telling her sister not to cross it.

Sadly, Janet’s younger sister Patricia died in 2006 at the age of 57, after being diagnosed with brain and lung cancer.

Speaking about how she coped with her death, Janet said: “I knew she was going to die quite soon.

“She had brain cancer and obviously on the day she actually died, I thought, ‘What would she want?’.

“I did my one-woman show, I can’t believe it. I went to a town in Southern England.

“I stood on a stage and did a comedy act, I just can’t believe it. But, that was my way of dealing with it, I didn’t cry or anything.”

Incredible career

Although Janet is known for her long-standing journalism career, she started off studying architecture at university, where she met her first husband Tim Street-Porter

However, afterwards, she decided to take a year out, and during that time, she was offered a job with the teenage magazine Petticoat.

Speaking about the start of her career on Loose Women, she described her first job as “brilliant” as she was in charge of all the pages about design.

In 1969, she went on to become the deputy fashion editor of the Daily Mail before being appointed the fashion editor of the Evening Standard two years later.

Branching out of her journalism career, Janet joined LBC local radio station in 1973 and co-presented a mid-morning show Paul Callan before leaving the following year.

Speaking about her time working with media outlets from LBC to The Guardian, she said: “Things were so difficult in the early days. My producer kept crying and rushing to the loo whenever guests didn’t show up.”

Throughout the 1970s, Janet started to branch out into television and appeared in shows such as The London Weekend Show and Saturday Night People.

In 2011, she joined ITV’s Loose Women as a panelist and has remained on the show 12 years on.

Aside from her writing and television career, she did some modelling in the past, with the images taken by her first husband at the time.

Multiple marriages

It’s no secret Janet has had some turbulent relationships in the past as she often jokes about her many marriages on Loose Women.

At the age of just 19 years old, she tied the knot with her first husband Tim Street-Porter in 1967.

However, the TV star confessed to having many affairs during their marriage and they decided to call it a day eight years later.

Shortly afterwards, she met Tony Elliot, Time Out Group founder and publisher, and the pair got married the same year she split from Tim.

Their marriage was short-lived, as they divorced after two years, as she revealed the decision for them to get married was a mistake.

She said ‘I do’ to her third husband, filmmaker Frank Cvitanovich, in 1979, and their marriage lasted until 1981.

The fourth and final time Janet walked down the aisle was to David Sorkin.

They tied the knot in 1997 before getting divorced in 1999, since then, the Loose Women star hasn’t married.

However, she’s been in a long-term relationship with Peter Spanton since 1999.

Teen pregnancy

Janet once revealed she had an unplanned pregnancy during the period of her exams.

At around 16 or 17 years old, the ITV star confessed she was doing her A-Levels when she learnt she was pregnant.

Once on Loose Women, she said: “I just did not know what to do and back then abortions were illegal, they were very, very hard to get.

“I remember going up to the West End and asking around in clubs for pills that might end my pregnancy and taking a whole cocktail of dodgy drugs and nothing happened, except I was really, really sick.”

Admitting she didn’t have a good relationship with her parents and was unable to talk to them, she took matters into her own hands.

She added: “Eventually someone helped me out and told me about a backstreet abortionist in North London and they wanted £25 in cash and I got the money out of my post office account and went up there.

“I just remember the walk from the station. I still dream about that walk. I walked along the road, went to the house, knocked on the door and I went into a flat upstairs.”

The star didn’t want to go into much detail on the show but stated she was made to get onto a kitchen table when it happened.