S14, MID-SEASON BONUS! How To Fail: Caroline Stanbury

How To Fail With Elizabeth Day

Sony Music

Society & Culture

4.8 • 9.4K Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2022

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Look, anyone who knows me knows of my love for reality TV. And anyone who knows anything about reality TV realises that when you get the chance to interview a bona fide Real Housewife, you jump at it. Which is why today's special bonus episode is with Caroline Stanbury.
Now, if you're not versed in your Bravo TV herstory or your pre-Selling Sunset heritage, you might not have heard of Caroline. She first appeared on our screens in 2014 as one of the cast members of the (sadly) short-lived Ladies of London. Viewers were either riveted by her ice-maiden ways or really quite scared. I was one of the latter, but I couldn't stop watching.
This is a woman born into privilege and old English money who went on to make her name in a completely different - and some might say, antithetical - world. Now she's back on our screens as part of The Real Housewives of Dubai.
I've never interviewed anyone quite like Caroline. She is impressive almost *because of* her lack of self-reflection: she just dusts herself down and gets on with it. Which is kind of hilarious when your podcast is all about failure. But it also caused me to reflect on how rare it is to see a woman inhabit this emotional space. And I came away thinking I had things to learn from her about inner strength. This is a long way of saying: it's not a typical HTF episode. But it is a wildly entertaining one as we talk about everything from surviving divorce (and then getting married to a much younger man), failing to go to university, the loss of her first business, IVF, boarding school, the power of manifestation and yes, of COURSE, the highs and lows of reality television.
Thank you Caroline - you're one in a billion.

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Caroline's podcast Divorced Not Dead is available to listen to here: https://dearmedia.com/shows/divorced-not-dead/

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How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp. To contact us, email [email protected]

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Social Media:

Elizabeth Day @elizabday

How To Fail @howtofailpod

Caroline Stanbury @carolinestanbury

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day. The podcast that celebrates the things
0:19.2	that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding
0:25.5	that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger because learning how to fail in life actually means
0:32.2	learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day and every
0:38.4	week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. During lockdown there
0:44.8	was certain things that helped my mental health. Regular exercise was one of them, margarita
0:50.4	fueled zoom calls with my best friend was another. But arguably one of the most important actions
0:56.7	I took to preserve my sanity was to rewatch the entirety of Ladies of London. An American
1:03.2	reality TV show that originally aired in 2014. It chronicled the lives of six women living
1:10.0	in London as they balance their social lives, businesses and families. And my far and
1:15.5	away the breakout star of that brilliant series was my guest today, Caroline Stanbury. Caroline
1:22.8	was beloved by viewers for her ice cold sarcasm and witty barbs which actually masked a huge
1:29.3	heart and an almost obsessive need to tell the truth. When it was announced she was returning as
1:34.9	one of the cast members of the hotly anticipated real housewives of Dubai, a generation of
1:40.4	bravo reality TV fans cheered. Stanbury grew up in Dorset, the daughter of a venture capitalist
1:46.8	and a fashion designer. It was a wealthy upbringing involving the usual English servings
1:52.0	of boarding school and emotional repression. She went on to work as a personal stylist and
1:57.4	set up her own business, gift library before experiencing TV fame. Stanbury is also an
2:03.9	entrepreneur, philanthropist and the host of the Divorced Not Dead podcast. As a fellow
2:10.0	divorcee myself, I love that title. I cannot believe I get to say this, but Caroline
2:17.2	Stanbury, welcome to How To Fail. Hi, God, what a leading. I don't even know what to do.
2:23.2	I wanted to say so much all the way through. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. The
	...

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