Nineteen Eighties ‘wild little one’ Emma Ridley is now a Christian fortress chatelaine

Emma Ridley’s life could quite easily have become yet another salutary lesson on the perils of fame and excess. She was the original ‘wild child’, a tag given to several well-brought up teenage girls who became famous for a short period in the mid-1980s for behaving outrageously in public. It was a phenomenon that spawned countless paparazzi pictures as girls such as Emma stumbled half-naked out of nightclubs.

As Britain shrugged off the last vestiges of the austere 1970s and settled into the Thatcher Years, the wild child era represented a cultural shift from gloom and doom to unabashed hedonism and consumerism, epitomised by Madonna‘s 1985 anthem Material Girl.

No one embraced the zeitgeist more than the wild child. Other teenage hell-raisers included Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, (goddaughter of the future King Charles), heiress Tamara Beckwith and Amanda de Cadenet, a racing car driver’s daughter who presented edgy TV shows such as The Word.

Aged 14, Emma was pictured in a nightclub wearing her school uniform with suspenders, pouting into the cameras clutching her teddy bear. Her antics led to headlines such as ‘Late night rave-ups of the queen of teeny shockers’.

Just 15, she shockingly ran off to Las Vegas where she married 30-year-old London nightclub owner Robert Pereno.

Almost 40 years on, what happens to a wild child after the fame ends?

Palmer-Tomkinson’s life plummeted into drug addiction which many attempts at rehab failed to cure. She was found dead, home alone, at 45 in 2017.

Beckwith had a child at 17 and was briefly engaged to actress Sharon Stone’s drug addict brother before cleaning up her act and marrying an Italian building heir.

De Cadenet married Duran Duran bassist John Taylor at 19, moved to Los Angeles and unsuccessfully tried to break into the movie business. She divorced Taylor and is now remarried, sober and hosting a podcast ‘featuring candid conversations with impactful thought leaders’.

As for Emma Ridley, after what she concedes has been a long and ‘sometimes incredibly tough journey’, now, rather improbably, she has become the chatelaine of an imposing 15th-century castle surrounded by 200-acres of rolling hills in the South of France.

Aged 52 and married to her fourth husband, multi-millionaire Michael Carter, 66, also on his fourth marriage (‘eight is our lucky number’) she signed a deal on Chateau de Reve (Castle of Dreams) in the Dordogne last month.

In an exclusive interview, she said: ‘I can honestly say I don’t regret a thing. When the whole wild child thing took off it captured a moment in time. We were girls from good backgrounds having fun in a way only girls like us could do. We never had to pay for anything. We were given bottles of champagne, free entry to clubs, free everything (including drugs).

‘I was wild and headstrong. I loved being a wild child. I got addicted to the fame and notoriety. Luckily I survived.’

As she prepared to leave LA, where she saw her first granddaughter, to return to France, she added: ‘I’ve always believed things happen for a reason and being a ‘wild child’ has never been something I have any regrets about.

‘I’ve always seen life as an adventure and at 52 I’m a proud glam-mama. I’m happy that my adventure is continuing as queen of my very own fairytale castle. It’s been a crazy journey.’

It certainly has.

Emma, daughter of a wealthy businessman, was raised in north London suburbia and studied at the Royal Ballet School.

She got her Equity card at four and became a child star in 1985 when, aged 13, she played Princess Ozma in Return To Oz, the Disney sequel to The Wizard Of Oz.

She has said: ‘I didn’t have boundaries growing up. The theme was: get out there and do what you can do. I can’t really blame anyone as it was my choice.’ Inevitably, her wild child moment in the spotlight faded as quickly as it began. The under-age first marriage crashed and burned after two years and she moved to LA and tried to recapture the ‘heady highs’ of fame.

An attempt to become a rap singer called Goldilocks failed, as did her efforts to break into Hollywood. ‘It was soul-crushing. I went to audition after audition for rejection after rejection.’

A brief second marriage to a music producer 20 years her senior produced a son, Otis, now 29, who’s just had his first child, Opal.

A third marriage to builder David Tyler produced two more children, Isis, 22, (‘named after the Egyptian goddess, not the terror group’) and Elim, 24.

Emma’s life ‘transformed’ when she met her current husband Michael Carter in 2015. A soft-spoken man, he is clearly besotted with his bubbly, much-younger wife. He allows her to take the lead in all conversations while, evidently, happily paying the bills.

Emma says: ‘I found God and I found Michael. Finally, my life made sense. Michael and I settled in a lovely, gated community outside LA. I focused on running a dance fitness class and he was running his TV station.

‘Then Covid hit. We had been looking for our dream home for a while but Covid made us realise we were looking for a new challenge. So the hunt for our dream home began.’ After years looking at scores of potential homes, they drove up to the iron gates of Chateau de Reve last November. It was love at first sight. ‘I grew up on movie sets so I’ve always believed in fairytales,’ she says. ‘In some ways my wild child life was living out a fairytale of what any teen girl would like to do.

‘I knew from being on a film set that you can create magic out of anything. When we walked into the castle for the first time, it felt like coming home.’ Emma, now a devout Christian, immediately asked the village priest to bless the castle but adds: ‘I never felt any bad juju.’

It was previously owned by a Swiss steel magnate for 30 years. When he died in 2015, it fell into disrepair as his heirs battled over the fortress which comes with a keep, a drawbridge, turrets with slits to fire arrows, and a moat. There is also a portcullis, a secret garden and six gun ports.

As soon as Emma was given the key to the castle, she and Michael were made queen and king by the estate agent in a ceremony using mock diamanté crowns.

Emma dreams of turning the castle into a venue for weddings, concerts and burlesque shows. They will be first to renew their vows once it is habitable.

They are staying at a hotel in the village while they renovate a cottage where they will live during the two-year castle makeover.

She has grandiose plans. The old stone kitchen will be transformed into a luxury spa retreat and there will be a traditional English pub called The King and Queen. But now the most pressing matter is making the castle safe to live in.

The leaky roof has moss growing through the tiles, there are bats in the belfry, cupboards have mould and many of the 15 bedrooms don’t have bathrooms.

Her enthusiasm is infectious as she talks of plans for art retreats and a horse and carriage which will bring guests up to be greeted by servants in 15th Century attire.

Neither Emma nor Michael speak French which one assumes could be a hindrance. ‘We have French lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I think as long as you try, locals appreciate it,’ she says.

TV companies have called to make a show about their renovation. ‘I see this as a mix between Escape To The Chateau and Fawlty Towers,’ says Emma.

So how much will all this cost? ‘I haven’t ‘done’ money since 2015 (the year she met her rich husband),’ she admits. ‘God will provide. Life is for living. If you want something badly enough it will happen. It’s all about having fun. I know how to throw a good party.’

Spoken like a true wild child.