Tracey Emin: My Life in a Column

The 5am Interview. 17 February 2006. Australia

Tracey Emin: No, it's not that simple. When I look in the mirror, what I see I don't hate. I just regret.

Interviewer: How can you regret the image of yourself?

I regret what I put my body through. When I see myself, I see a redundancy.

You have an amazing figure!

Don't be so shallow. I'm referring to an inner redundancy. Being physical is painful. It fucking hurts living. Waking up. Thinking. Breathing. Eating. Laughing. Crying. Loving. It all hurts.

But that is living.

And that's why for a long time I wished I had never been born.

You're a twit, Tracey.

Yes, but for seven months my Mum never knew we were twins. In fact, at four months she panicked. She panicked and went to have us aborted, but she couldn't go through with it. I was lodged high up in her ribcage. For seven months she thought I was indigestion. It wasn't that my Mum didn't want more children. It's just that she believed childhood to be the most painful thing in the entire universe. She also said any woman that said it didn't hurt was a liar, and that she would rather die than have to do in again.

Are you saying you weren't wanted?

NO! Not by the time I had arrived and she had gone through all that pain. But I did roll out yellow, silent and dead looking. I weighed four and a half pounds. I was placed in the incubator for a few days. I was only 11 inches long and, curled up, I could fit in one of my hands.

You speak as though you remember all this.

Maybe I do. Being a twin... you have a collective memory.

Are you close to your twin?

I love him. He's my brother. There is something so sweet about him. I hate thinking that at any time in his life, he may be, or may have been, hurt or corrupted. We are both damaged in some way.

When you were small you had your own language.

Yes, and we were telepathic, and at the age of five, school knocked that all out of us. Also, my brother could speak as much Greek and Turkish as he could English. And we were ambidextrous. Christ, school can be shit!

Let's get back to you and the mirror image thing. What is it that you dislike so much? How does it manifest itself?

I'm too heavy.

You think you're fat?

No. I just wish I was lighter. My body is restricting. My thoughts. My mind. Everything's so bloody heavy.

Let's just look at the physical. What do you dislike?

I hate my tits.

You're joking?

NO, I can remember the last time I liked my breasts. I was 15, with my Mum and her friend Margarete. I had met them in London one Sunday afternoon. It was weeks since I had seen my Mum. We met at Embankment and went to McDonald's.

You eat at McDonald's?

Listen. This was 1978. There were only two in London then. Anyway, we walked to Whitehall. I remember I was wearing jodhpurs, a pair of alligator stilettos, a green V-neck jumper tucked in, no bra and a Sam Brown belt. In those days, my breasts came out from my neck. We stood in horse guard parade. My Mum told me the guards never smiled or moved. To my delight, the horse in front of me did this really cute neigh thing and lifted one hoof. I jumped up and down on the spot, clapping my hands. I still remember the guard, his face set in stone, apart from the very slight curl of his lip. My tits were amazing.

So what happened?

I don't know. I woke up one day and they were like someone else's - someone old. I always thought it would be OK when I had children. That they would just blend in with the world.

What about the drinking then?

What about it?

Well you admit yourself you're an alcoholic.

No, I fucking don't! I haven't had a drink for eight days. What I said is, I get drunk too much. I binge-drink. But it only takes me a bottle and a half of wine and I'm on the floor.

So why do you do it?

I told you earlier, I feel too heavy. Don't you sometimes just wish you didn't exist? Well, I do. I'd like to just disappear to some place else. Somewhere even I don't know.

Don't you think we've heard all this before?

Yes, but it all relates to my body, and to my regrets. Today I wish I was a virgin. There is so much that I should never have allowed to enter my body.

Like what?

It's simple. I wish I could make love for the first time and really feel love. I don't think that's too much to ask for.

It is. It's far too much.

Tracey Emin is somewhere in Australia. At a health retreat. Hmm...