How chain-smoking, tattooed Lady Venetia Baring – who claims her grandmother ‘didn’t really like’ Princess Diana – says she lives ‘paycheque to paycheque’

A chain-smoking 25-year-old socialite covered in tattoos who says she lives ‘paycheque to paycheque’ is hoping to become the new ‘ladylike’ face of the aristocracy.

Lady Venetia Baring wants to show people that it doesn’t have to be ‘some stuffy, stale and possibly ignorant existence’.

She has appeared in campaigns for Nike and Dr. Martens – even snagged a small cameo in Disney’s 2023 superhero movie The Marvels.

But despite being related to two opulent families, the Barings and the Rothermeres, Venetia says her life is that of an ordinary person.

‘Some people automatically think I have a stately home and a butler. And that’s not my life,’ she told the paper.

The social media savvy model who has 19,500 followers Instagraminsisted that none of her friends even know she has a title.

Venetia – who recently spent time enjoying the company of some of society’s best and brightest, including Princess Vittoria of Savoy, Freddie Knatchbull and Tara DuRoss – at Tatler’s Little Black Book party explained how her aesthetic has served as her form of rebellion.

The aristocrat’s public display of brightly colored hair, piercings and ‘tomboy’ fashion is a way of ‘celebrating her body’ and ‘feeling empowered’.

Her childhood saw Venetia growing up between houses in Sloane Square, Somerset – in a now sold Grade II listed former vicarage – and Thailand.

At the age of 10, Venetia was sent to a boarding school, St Mary’s Calne in Wiltshire, where she enjoyed seven great years of memories and lifelong friends.

But her rebellious nature shone through even then – she was caught smoking, sneaking out of school and even taking secret trips to London for ‘squat raves’.

After graduating, she enrolled at Manchester University to study art history, but found it surprisingly difficult to mix with people from her own educational background.

Venetia said: ‘They were all on my course. I mean, only boarding school people do art history. But they just weren’t, like, welcome to me. It was a bit confusing. So I went out and made my own friends.’

The aristocrat’s public display of her brightly colored hair, piercings and ‘tomboy’ fashion is a way to ‘celebrate her body’ and ‘feel empowered’

Venetia – who is also close to her brother Alexander – has also reconnected with her mum Shelley, who also lives in London and owns a jewelery business, and admits she wants the pair to go on a bonding trip to China together

With uni came her parents’ divorce – which dragged Venetia into a depression and affected her studies – as her mum and dad ‘dragged her really hard into it’.

She moved back to the capital in 2018, where her mental health improved after she started bartending in Brixton’s Canova Hall. There she met her boyfriend Sasha, who worked as a cook. The couple recently celebrated their four-year anniversary.

Venetia – who is also close to her brother Alexander – has also since reconnected with her mother Shelley, who also lives in London and has a jewelery business, and admits she wants the pair to go on a bonding trip to China together.

However, she has drifted away from her father – Evelyn, 77.

“He got married again to a very beautiful, young Thai girl… it’s a bit complicated,” she admitted. ‘As I get older I realize she (Shelley) was really hurt and he (Evelyn) was panicking. And like, they’re human, they’re always going to mess up, just like we do. So I shouldn’t expect too much.’

In her online portfolio, Venetia says she runs a workshop called Divurgent for creatives – ‘where models, photographers and creatives can come together to learn and develop their skills and build a community here in London’.

She moved back to the capital in 2018, where her mental health improved after she started bartending in Brixton’s Canova Hall. There she met her boyfriend Sasha (both pictured), who worked as a cook

In her online portfolio, Venetia says she runs a workshop called Divurgent for creatives. Pictured with his guinea pig

A chain-smoking 25-year-old socialite covered in tattoos who says she lives ‘paycheque to paycheque’ hopes to become the new ‘unladylike’ face of the artistocracy and wants to show people it doesn’t have to be ‘something’ stuffy, stale and possibly unconscious existence’

It comes as Lord Cromer responded in a withering letter to The Times to claims from his daughter’s Tatler interview that his mother was not a fan of the late Princess Diana.

“Lady Venetia Baring alleges that my late mother, the Dowager Countess of Cromer, said ‘She really didn’t like Diana’ and that ‘Diana should be caught’,” he said.

The old Etonian fellow made it so clear that, in his opinion, it is inconceivable that his mother would ever have uttered such words, noting that she ‘served the late Queen for 17 years and was rewarded for her loyalty, work and devotion of a CVO’.

“Throughout her long service my mother was the soul of beauty,” he added, pointing out that his mother “no doubt” would have learned the necessity of such discretion while married to her father, who was successively governor of the Bank of England and then British ambassador in Washington.

‘It would be quite strange for my mother to make a comment about a member of the Royal Family to anyone, least of all to one of her grandchildren,’ concludes Lord Cromer, ‘and especially to Lady Venetia Baring, my daughter, who was born after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.’

Evelyn is now divorced from Venetia’s mother Shelley and lives in Thailand with his third wife, Jiraporn Buengman.

See the entire feature in the February issue of Tatler available via digital download and on newsstands from Thursday 1 February.