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Nigella Lawson in a black and white floral dress© Getty Images

Nigella Lawson's private home life from grown-up children to tragic family losses

The chef and broadcaster presents Cook, Eat, Repeat

HELLO!
Deputy Features Editor
Digital Travel Editor
Updated: May 27, 2025
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Nigella Lawson has been a familiar face on our screens for as long as we can remember, with her indulgious meals and iconic voice winning her an army of fans.

The star often films inside her own home, allowing fans a glimpse behind-the-scenes. Although she allows a camera crew into her home, the 65-year-old is mostly quite private when it comes to her personal life and children and we rarely see photos of her family.

Find out more about the star's home life below...

Nigella Lawson attends preview screening of Conclave © Shutterstock
Nigella Lawson

Chelsea home

Nigella lives in a £5 million pink-painted mews house in London. She moved into her home in 2013 after splitting from her second husband, Charles Saatchi.

nigella lawson home kitchen pic© Photo: Instagram
Nigella's kitchen at home

It is believed that the property boasts a cinema, a wine cellar and a modern kitchen. An Instagram photo of her garden showed a pretty pagoda surrounded by trees.

In her kitchen, Nigella has peppermint green kitchen cupboards and a matching AGA oven. She has metallic silver splashback panels and a matching hanging rod where she stores a combination of silver, copper and blue utensils.

Relationships

Nigella wed renowned art collector Charles Saatchi in September 2003 and the couple were married for 10 years. The end of their 'tumultuous' marriage was featured heavily in the press, and in 2013 they were granted a decree nisi. 

Nigella Lawson in a black dress with her ex-husband Charles Saatchi© Getty
Nigella Lawson was married to Charles for 10 years

The cook's first husband was journalist John Diamond, who she met in 1986 when they worked on The Sunday Times together. They married in Venice, Italy, in 1992, but tragically, John died of throat cancer in March 2001 when he was just 47.

John was incredibly proud of Nigella and he shared beautiful words with her before he passed. He reportedly told her: "How proud I am of you and what you have become. The great thing about us is that we have made us who we are."

Children

Nigella is mum to two children, Cosima Thomasina, 31, and Bruno Paul, 28, with her late husband John Diamond.

Although the 65-year-old is photographed regularly when she attends glamorous events, her children live a more low-key life. Speaking to the Australian Women's Weekly in 2019, she explained: "I'm very protective of my children because they don't want attention, it's not their thing and they didn't choose this life."

Cosima Lawson© Shutterstock
Nigella's daughter, Cosima, is the image of her mum

In an interview with the Sunday Mirror, Nigella revealed: "When I am on TV I cook the food that I cook at home but my children always tease me. I do a running commentary at home of my life like I do on TV."

Family losses

The TV star is one of four children: sisters Thomasina and Horatia and her journalist brother Dominic. Sadly, Thomasina passed away when she was 31 from breast cancer, and we can see Nigella's tribute to her sister in her daughter Cosima's middle name. Nigella was pregnant with Cosima when her sister died.

Nigella's parents are Nigel Lawson, a former politician, and Vanessa Salmon, who was heiress to the J. Lyons and Co. fortune. 

Nigella Lawson with her dad Nigel Lawson© Mike Marsland
Nigella pictured with her father Nigel in 2008

Her mother tragically died aged 48 from liver cancer in 1985, while her father Nigel sadly passed away aged 91 in April 2023. 

The chef confessed that following her mother's death, she refused to let herself feel guilty about enjoying food after watching her mum deny herself anything sweet until just two weeks before her death.

Black-and-white photo of Vanessa Salmon posing in a courtyard© Getty Images
Nigella's mum is the late Vanessa Salmon

Writing in her book Cook, Eat, Repeat, Nigella explained: "I was brought up by a mother - the cook I have learned most from - whose grimly exuberant output in the kitchen was set in painfully sharp relief, and indeed fostered, by an expanding pattern of self-denial and self-punishment; not an uncommon syndrome, incidentally.

"Diagnosed with terminal cancer two weeks before her death, she started eating - for the first time, she said giddily - without worry or guilt." 

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