Ulrika Jonsson reveals how she re-discovered her 'irrepressible sex drive' in her 50s following a 'barren marriage' after Gwyneth Paltrow admitted to grieving her lack of libido
has detailed how she re-discovered her 'irrepressible sex drive' in her 50s after Gwyneth Paltrow admitted to grieving her lack of libido.
The presenter, 57, who candidly discussed her 'barren marriage' in which she had sex just twice in eight years, shared her thoughts on the actress' recent comments.
Speaking on the most recent episode of her Goop podcast, Gwyneth, 52, admitted when her 'sexuality wanes she feels a grief.'
Meanwhile, as she enjoys her 'newfound sexual revolution' in her fifties, Ulrika, confessed to experiencing the opposite.
Writing in her column for The Sun, she explained: 'Little surprise then that I emerged from that long, barren relationship with my spark plugs replaced and firing on all cylinders — I was a thirsty girl. My sex drive was irrepressible.
'My other defence is that, as well as living for nearly eight years with only two sexual encounters, I also never did any of it when I was in my twenties either.'
Ulrika added: 'At 52, Gwynneth is six years my junior and lagging a tad behind, but I certainly know where she's coming from. Or not coming from.'
It comes in response to Gwynneth's previous comments as she confessed to struggling with her sexuality.
She said: 'My sexuality has changed, and it makes me feel like I don't know myself anymore. When my sexuality wanes or libido or whatever hormonally, I feel, like, a grief.
'My sexuality was such a huge and important part of who I was. I do notice there's a bit of, like, anhedonia lately.
'There's something about this time hormonally where it's like the pleasure all around is just dulled.'
Since launching her lifestyle brand Goop 2008, Gwyneth has become an increasingly extroverted over-sharer.
She has shared lists of her favourite vibrators and provided tips on how her readers can improve their libido and have more fun in the bedroom - whether it's with a partner or by themselves.
Gwynneth also caused quite the stir when she candidly opened up about her past relationships with Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck.
In 2023, she revealed which of the on-screen stars was 'better in bed' and who of the two was the 'best kisser'.
The admissions, made during an appearance on the sex-focused podcast Call Her Daddy, was the latest in a very long line of brazen 'bare it all' confessions from Gwynnie, who has in recent years readily offered up all manner of anecdotes about the most intimate aspects of her life.
Meanwhile, Ulrika has been single since her 2019 divorce from third husband Brian Monet after the pair parted ways after ten years together. They have one son, Malcolm, 16.
Her first marriage to cameraman John Turnbull was in 1990 and they have a son, Cameron, 30.
The presenter's second marriage in 2003 was to Lance Gerrard-Wright who, at the time, was a contestant on her TV show Mr Right. They share a daughter, Martha, 20.
The mother-of-four also has a daughter, Bo, 24, with ex-boyfriend hotelier, Marcus Kempen, who she separated from in 2000 after two years.
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Compton (Emmy nominated for her documentary on deepfake pornography, Another Body) and Hudson (who won a Bafta Breakthrough award for her film Half Way, documenting her own family's experience of homelessness) have the confidence to make their subjects collaborators on the project, inviting them into the editing process, to ensure everyone feels happy with how their experiences have been handled. 'They could say what they did and didn't like,' Hudson says. 'They wanted more laughter included. Our wish was that they felt proud of the film.' Once western Europe's largest women's prison, Holloway has a significant place in British history. More than 300 suffragettes were held in a wing of the original building during the early 20th century. Ruth Ellis was hanged there in 1955, the last woman to be executed in the UK. Greenham Common protesters spent time here. Sarah Reed, who had previously been a victim of police brutality in 2012, died in her cell in 2016. 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'I was worried they could edit our voices and create a narrative that we weren't hoping for,' she says. 'I was thinking, 'We're trusting them with a level of vulnerability that we're not comfortable with. What are these people going to do with it?'' Gradually she was reassured and slowly began to reveal some of the childhood events that catapulted her into prison – family breakdown, domestic violence, a move to a women's refuge, then later into a residential children's home at the age of 12. Her problems escalated when she got caught up in county lines dealing, as a child exploited by criminal gangs to move and supply drugs. 'I was introduced to selling drugs, which I was very good at, and it was the first time that I started to feel a sense of worth,' she finally reveals on camera. She is dismayed to remember how little support she received as a child. 'The system saw me as a bad girl … as somebody who asked for all of this,' she says in the film. 'It was always, 'What's wrong with you? Why can't you just behave? Why can't you just stop doing this?' Nothing was asked about what actually happened to me,' she says. Her fury is echoed by Ogunmokun. 'It's so frustrating to see how similar the stories of people going in and out of prison are. Change is so slow,' she says. The daughter of a woman who struggled with addiction, she also spent some of her childhood in care, went to Holloway first aged 20, and was in and out repeatedly for two decades until she shook off her own drug addiction aged 40. 'I'm angry that some kids are born into certain circumstances, and what chance do they have?' Ogunmokun, 66, has dedicated the 25 years since leaving Holloway to helping former addicts break the cycle of addiction and offending. 'Every time I reoffended the judge would say: 'You haven't learned anything.'' She didn't get the support she needed to change while she was in prison, through no real fault of the prison staff. 'The officers see horrific things, but they're not trained counsellors – they're not mental health trained, they're not sex-trafficking trained, they're not domestic violence trained. They've got a regime they have to run by.' She hopes the film might persuade viewers that there needs to be a revolution in the way that female offenders are treated. It is almost 20 years since the seminal Corston report on vulnerable women in the criminal justice system called for a radically different strategy, but many of the report's key recommendations have yet to be implemented. Hudson and Compton struggled for several years to raise funding to finish their film. Now they feel happy that it is being released at a time when there is some emerging optimism about the possibility of change. 'The simple truth is that we are sending too many women to prison,' the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said earlier this year. 'We need to do things differently.' The film will be screened at an event with the prisons minister, James Timpson, in parliament later this month. Hudson's first fiction film, Lollipop, which comes out this month too, also features a woman who has recently left prison. She says both projects examine the way vulnerable women are shamed and blamed, as well as trying to showcase 'the power of women that society tries to put on the outskirts'. Ali is satisfied with how the film has turned out, and wants it to be shown to young people in prisons, to offer hope that lives can alter course. Despite her early reservations, she is impressed by the directors' creation. 'It's been emotionally turbulent,' she says, 'but they've done an amazing job.' Holloway is in UK cinemas from 20 June.
