Queen of the rave, wellness warrior and a biological age of 20. Davinia Taylor made it back from rock bottom and reimagined her life in a way she never dreamed possible

By Cheryl Caira

Photography by Karl Collins

I’ve always enjoyed interviewing people who say it like it is. Davinia Taylor – even after a big weekend, lost in the reverberating joy of the dancefloor – is chatty, brimming with energy and refreshingly unfiltered. 

If you’re one of Taylor’s 1.3m followers on Instagram, you’ll know her fondness for house music runs deep. Her videos showing her driving to the sound of old-school anthems have brought together an equally nostalgic community, united in the buzz of a banger. 

It’s not just about paying homage to some of the best tracks of the nineties. For Taylor, music has been a lifeline in every way. It’s a dopamine release that snaps her out of a bad mood. It cuts through procrastination. And it’s kept her sober, she says. Now she heads out dancing without a drop of alcohol, and still feels frisson – when your autonomic nervous system experiences something so moving, it gives you goosebumps. 

“There’s a lot of research suggesting that the rhythm really helps people’s cognition. I was in a club in Manchester at 2am on Sunday called Amber’s, which has a no-phones policy. It really just took me back to clubs like Sankeys Soap or even The Haçienda – the lights, the sound, and just watching people actually dancing – not paying homage to a superstar DJ. It’s a piece of ancestral science that we don’t pay enough respect to. There’s always going to be contention within society, but when you dance together, that’s where the connection is.”

Wigan-born, Taylor rose to fame playing Jude Cunningham in the Channel 4 series Hollyoaks (mostly during the mid-nineties with a brief return to the role in 2016), and went on to coveted presenting roles on the decade’s coolest programmes (The Big Breakfast, Top of the Pops). It was also the peak of tabloidification – if there was a salacious celeb story to be had or a wild headline to emblazon, the red tops were on it. 

Taylor was easy prey as a young, good-looking public figure enjoying the spoils of London’s party circuit. She was part of a group of creatives famously monikered ‘the Primrose Hill Set’. It seemed an exclusive inner circle – glamorous, hedonistic and A-list. Core members included Sadie Frost, Sienna Miller, Pearl Lowe and Kate Moss – Taylor offered the supermodel refuge at her home when the paparazzi were in a frenzy over Moss’s breakup with the Libertines frontman Pete Doherty. 

The most notorious terraced property in north London – Supernova Heights, named after the Oasis hit ‘Champagne Supernova’ – was a magnet for tabloid snappers and fans of the band, hoping for a glimpse of Noel Gallagher. Taylor remains close to activist and entrepreneur Meg Mathews – once married to Gallagher and tight with the set. Taylor bought the three-storey home in 1999, and so the baton was passed.

“No one actually lived in Primrose Hill!” she says. “We lived in Belsize Park, but for some reason they called it Primrose Hill. Back then I didn’t have kids, I was in my early 20s and I was just having a laugh really. Again, it was all about connection and like-minded people. I was hanging around with risk-takers, pioneers, some of the funniest people in the world, and the best musicians on the planet.”

After a move up the road to London’s leafy St John’s Wood neighbourhood and some time in the sunshine in a seven-bedroom villa in Marbella, Taylor has settled in the north-west of England. Her day to day is now spent in an 18th-century country home in Lancashire with her husband and four kids. 

Back then it was a slew of newspapers; now one of the main culprits for criticism is social media. As much as it’s been a great space for the 48-year-old to cultivate a gang that shares her love for wellness and longevity, it can also leave you open to trolling and negativity. Is she able to turn a blind eye to the comment section if need be?

“I have absolutely no willpower not to get involved in a fight. You’ve got to remember, when I was as young as 17 the press used to do kiss-and-tells on me – and your granddad would read it. Back then there wasn’t a comment section, but worst of all, there wasn’t a way to fight back and say: ‘That’s not true.’ I think I’ve got a bit of trauma from that.

“I think of kids now, and what affects you is people in your immediate circle. That’s what’s happening with social media now. I wasn’t bothered about some stranger 200 miles away reading a story in News of the World, it was more about your neighbour looking at you funny, or your nan saying she’s embarrassed because someone sold a sex story about you. It’s what’s happening now in every school and university – girls get shamed all the time, and I feel that pain.

“It’s also OK to be pissed off. Most wellbeing people will tell you the opposite, but when I got divorced, being angry got me through that sober. I had an emotion I could grab on to, and it propelled me into action. Oh my God, I’d rather be angry than flatline. I really would.”

For over a decade, Taylor has thrown herself into the health sphere with a hunger to learn, inform and get people working with their biology. Seen as a wellness guru, she’s become a prominent voice within biohacking and nutrition – to the tune of four Sunday Times bestsellers, advising on eliminating processed foods, balancing your hormones, reducing inflammation and a host of other longevity-focused topics. She also co-founded WillPowders in 2021 – a range of supplements, bone broths and electrolytes – with her husband Matt Leyden, an ex-rugby player and property developer. 

Taylor noticed a major improvement in her health after Leyden introduced her to the ketogenic diet at age 35 – she’d previously struggled with her weight and energy levels. Driven by her personal journey, the brand was about providing quality ingredients not readily available in the UK to support metabolic health – including MCT oil for inducing a fat-burning state of ketosis.

“I recently interviewed Dr Isabella Cooper. She’s the antithesis of these wannabe famous doctors who just give out beige. She did a great study on women who are already in ketosis, then took them back onto a standard British diet. Every single cancer risk factor marker went up, and that was just for three weeks. Then she put them back in ketosis, and boom – they all came back down again. 

“I’m not fully ketogenic, but since I started fuelling with fat, it seems to have really alleviated my low mood and lessened brain fog. We can’t get exogenous ketones in the UK – they’re about two years away from being on the open market. Australia and America have them, and drinking a can of ketones really switches my brain back on.”

Taylor took solace in unhealthy food when her mum passed away from breast cancer in 2013. Consumed by grief, she ate indiscriminately and felt sluggish, swollen and constantly ill. Food was her second addiction – alcohol had come first. Taylor got sober in her late 20s after an intervention from her mother, when she went through rehab for 12 weeks. Her rock bottom was losing custody of her first child in 2010 to her former husband Dave Gardner – she had also had debilitating pre and post-natal depression. It was her wake-up call to commit to a recovery programme, and she later regained shared custody.

I ask about those dark moments in her life – how did she bridge the gap between feeling incredibly stuck and believing change might be possible?

“You’ve got to get down, dirty and truthful with another addict. No one else can help you. You’ve got to trust that you’re not special. If you’re an addict, you have a disease and a mental obsession that one day you will drink like you used to and recover. 

“My mates have all drunk 20 years more than me, but not one of them is an alcoholic. We all partied together, we all did weekenders together, but I crossed the line and couldn’t come back. They can go out a couple of times a month, but for me it’d be death. I am one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have that negotiation anymore. I don’t need to drink. It’s just off the table, and there’s no craving.”

The lessons she’s learned from being a mother to four boys (the eldest is 19, the youngest 10) – pick your battles and accept the chaos, whether that’s squabbles or cricket games in the kitchen. “I want to give my kids the opportunity to pursue what they want. I remember the phenomenal pressure I was put under to be academic, and I’m just not doing that. I’m just like: use school as a great place to learn, but also socialise and make your friendship groups. When I left school at 17 to become an actor my parents freaked out, but I’d just come to the end of my line.”

A highlight holiday for Taylor was heading up to St Andrews for a family trip to the 150th Open, to see Tiger Woods’ emotional walk down the 18th hole at the Old Course – and catching glorious sunshine on the West Coast where it felt like “the Bahamas”. 

“I love Scotland. I’m a northerner anyway, and I really find Scottish people funny. They’ve got that sharp, self-deprecating humour, which you just don’t get down south, do you?”

There are tons of ideas percolating for future wellness projects – she could see herself opening a healthy cafe brand, with a biohacking environment, clean air and calming scents that are good for the nervous system.

“The trouble with having an addictive brain is the, ‘What next?’ I get bored so quickly. I’m highly hyper-competitive with myself. I give everyone else a rest, but me? No – that’s just the nature of the beast. It’s exhausting having that goal mentality that never ends. I’m an addict, so I’ll never be successful enough, honest to God. Ultimately though, I’ve never been happier and more secure in who I am.”

Taylor discovered in 2025 that she’d almost halved her biological age, based on a blood test that measures inflammatory markers. She credits it to daily biohacks (essentially lifestyle changes that optimise your physiology), a focus on strength training and her dietary shift to healthy fats.

“I’ll be honest with you, I really don’t want to die. I just dig life. I love running around, I love taking the dogs out, I love watching the kids. It’s about: how do I keep enjoying this and keep this stability going? That’s all I’m after.”

Wellness with Davinia

Morning momentum

I’ll have a coffee to open up the receptors for dopamine, and combine that with a couple of minutes outside in daylight. Then it’s another coffee and getting the kids ready for school – which definitely requires plenty of dopamine, because it’s repetitive and no one listens to me. The music goes on and depending on where I am in my cycle, I’ll take some nootropics. I also have a cold shower. They don’t work for everyone, but they work for me.  

Finding calm

Running really helps me, as does sitting in a sauna and reading a proper paperback book. I’m a big fan of transcendental meditation and Wim Hof breathwork, but if your mind is too busy, sometimes you just need to chill out and watch the telly with a cup of chamomile tea and a bit of collagen in it. The glycine in collagen helps calm the nervous system, as does the apigenin in the tea. Just bloody watch The Kardashians if you want – I’m currently watching Love Island. 

Keeping it real

I’m the antithesis of perfectionism. I’m notoriously scruffy, forgetful and impulsive – that’s just me seeking dopamine, I guess. I’m the opposite of a wellbeing guru who has everything organised. I don’t have the capacity to batch cook, so I get as much protein as I can into the kids via bone broth. After that, what can I do? I know they’ll go off and have pizza and chips.  

Find more info on WillPowders at willpowders.com