Interview: Tyger and Linzi Drew-Honey

Actor and presenter Tyger Drew-Honey believes his ex-model author mum could end up as the next E L James. Rosanna Greenstreet meets mother and son at Linzi’s Weybridge home

Actor and presenter Tyger Drew-Honey has popped round to his mum’s home in Weybridge. It’s an exciting time for Linzi, who has just published her debut novel, an erotic thriller ingeniously entitled Every Shade of Blue. But if you’re expecting Tyger to feel flickers of embarrassment at this maternal foray into erotica, think again. When you’re brought up with a glamour model mum and a porn star dad, talking sex is just par for the course.

“I always knew what my parents did,” he says. “Even when I was four or five, I understood that Mummy and Daddy worked in this industry where Pascale – my friend who would buy me the best Christmas presents and walk me along the ceiling – had ‘special cuddles’ with this gorgeous woman and Daddy filmed them, and Mummy did the paperwork.”

“You were allowed in Mummy’s office,” laughs Linzi, “but not Daddy’s!”

“Later I understood that ‘special cuddles’ meant sex,” continues Tyger, who has presented several BBC documentaries on matters of the flesh. “And then, as I got older, I understood what porn was. People think it must all have been seedy and druggy, but I had a very pleasant and very warm upbringing. Also, the money that my parents made from porn enabled them to send me to really good schools and have a really good life.”

Educated at Danes Hill and Epsom College, only child Tyger, who has just turned 20, has indeed led a charmed life. At 10 he starred in the school production of Treasure Island, wowing an audience which just happened to include a voice-over agent. Lucrative voice-over jobs followed and he appeared in comedy sketch programme The Armstrong & Miller Show.

Then, in 2007, came the role of Jake Brockman in Outnumbered, the hugely successful sitcom about middle-class family life. In the factual TV series Tyger Takes On he addresses issues that affect teenagers, while his recent brush with the technology of tomorrow yielded the fascinating documentary The Virtual Reality Virgin.

As we sit and chat in Linzi’s comfortable sitting room, Tyger’s adorable but rather boisterous Yorkipoo, Regy-T – Tyger spelled backwards – bounces around between us. On the walls are framed pictures of Linzi in her heyday, including an Athena poster of her called Seduction and a photo from a shoot referencing Salome’s Last Dance, one of several Ken Russell films in which she appeared.

Now 57, she is still a striking blonde in her skinny white jeans and diaphanous pale turquoise shirt.

“I am from Bristol originally and used to work in the bar at Bristol City Football Club,” she tells me. “Someone from The Sun gave me a card and said: “You should do modelling.” So I gave this guy a call, came up to London, got myself an agent and started doing Page 3.”

Linzi went on to pose for Penthouse and later spent four years editing the magazine. She got together with Tyger’s father, Lindsay, after a blind date inspired by their having pretty much the same name. In 1996 they had Tyger; who, to confuse matters further, is actually called Lindzi.

“My mum is Linzi and my Dad is Lindsay, and because my parents are so imaginative they combined the two and called me Lindzi,” explains the man himself. “But when I was born, I had a problem with my vocal chords: they were too close together and didn’t vibrate as they should have done. So, for the first months of my life I was very growly and they nicknamed me Tiger.”

The name stuck: Tiger became Tyger, and Linzi and Lindsay duly registered their son as Lindzi James Tyger Drew-Honey. The couple separated in 2010, but remain on good terms. Initially mother and son stayed in the family home on the Burwood Park estate at Hersham, before moving to a rented house near Epsom College until Tyger finished GCSEs.

Weybridge has been home since 2012, though Tyger recently moved to Walton where he is renting an apartment from his dad, who lives next door. Regy-T stayed behind, but Tyger is now buying a property, to which the dog will also be going. The new place is just around the corner from Linzi; and, given the strong bond between mother and son, no doubt Tyger – and Regy – will be popping in and out.

He is full of praise for his mother’s book and keen to promote it – hence our interview and exclusive photoshoot in Linzi’s walled garden. Like Fifty Shades of Grey, he believes, the book would translate to the big screen.

“I think there is plenty of scope for a movie. It’s a fantastic story, so it would be a gripping watch.”

Linzi’s literary heroines are Jackie Collins and Jodi Picoult. Not surprisingly, however, E L James has also provided inspiration.

“I read Fifty Shades and thought it a good book. I used to write sexy stuff, but I’d never written a novel. I thought I’d see if I could do it and it took nine months,” she explains. “When I do a sex scene, I write it as it flows, then go back and spend a whole day rewriting.

“I am reconstructing sentences but also thinking: ‘Is that physically possible?’ On occasion, I’ve moved my chair and got down to see if this leg here and that hand there would really work. I had to shut the office door because Regy kept coming in,” she chuckles. “No doubt he was thinking: ‘Why is Mum rolling around on the floor?’”

Linzi decided to self-publish.

“I got a couple of publishers interested, but they didn’t have good reputations. I then sent the manuscript to Blake Publishing – they brought out my autobiography when I was in my thirties – but they only do non-fiction and suggested self-publishing.”

Every Shade of Blue is available as an ebook and in paperback. As far as sales go, it’s early days, but reader reviews have been positive and, if things go well, a sequel will follow. Linzi is still only halfway through her first draft, however, so a lot more rolling around lies ahead.

Just as well that Regy-T is moving out!

Every Shade Of Blue is available on Amazon for Kindle and as a paper back, you can check it out by clicking here

For more great interviews with local celebrities click here, like our recent chinwag with Brian Blessed

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