Top designer Bella Freud has revealed how she once had a a close escape when she nearly crashed her famous father Lucian Freud’s Bentley.
She was only eight years old when she decided to ‘go for a drive’ in the artist’s parked car.
Taking to her Instagram Story, Bella reminisced on her near miss and how Freud saved her.
Recounting the story she began: ‘Dad had driven down from London for a fleeting visit in his dark blue Bentley.’
Bella explained while he was chatting to Penny Cuthbertson, his friend and muse, she took her chance.
She explained: ‘It all looked so easy. It was parked by the side of the road so I slipped into the driver’s seat and took off the handbrake.
Top designer Bella Freud has revealed how she nearly crashed her father Lucian’s Bentley at just eight years-old in a horror near miss
She was just eight when she decided to ‘go for a drive’ in the artist’s parked car, explaining: ‘I slipped into the driver’s seat and took off the handbrake’ (pictured with her dad in 2009)
‘It started to roll towards the ditch. Suddenly Dad was leaping in beside me, pushing me out of the way with his body, stopping the car with an upward wrench of the handbrake as it lurched downwards.’
Yet her father luckily wasn’t angry with her antics after the lucky escape.
She added: ‘He didn’t chastise me. He only said unsmilingly “You must be careful”.’
Bella’s father Lucian had at least 14 children by several different mothers — although a friend once reckoned that the artist may have fathered as many as 40.
Three of his daughters were born in the same year after the result of multiple affairs.
Lucian shared Bella and her sister Ester with Bernandine Coverley, who was just 18 when she gave birth to Bella.
Bella’s birth was caught on canvas after Freud made her the subject of his painting Pregnant Girl, 1960-61.
Tragically Bella lost both her parents within days of each other after her mother passed away in July 2011 just four days after the legendary painter’s death.
She told followers: ‘It started to roll towards the ditch. Suddenly Dad was leaping in beside me, pushing me out of the way with his body, stopping the car with an upward wrench of the handbrake as it lurched downwards’ (Bella pictured as a child)
Yet her father luckily wasn’t angry with her antics after the lucky escape. She added: ‘He didn’t chastise me. He only said unsmilingly “You must be careful”‘ (pictured together in 2008)
She wrote at the time: ‘My beloved father died last week on Wednesday, July 20. He was 88.
‘When I was younger I used to be able to make myself cry in three seconds at the thought of losing him. Even though I will miss him for the rest of my life, it seems reasonable that he should have gone.
‘What has been the biggest shock is my mother Bernardine dying four days after my father, aged only 68.
‘She walked into Ipswich hospital in pain and discovered that she was in the advanced stages of cancer.
‘A week later we were told she had a week to live, and she died 13 days after being admitted. When she was still able to speak, I sobbed in her arms as she lay in the hospital bed.’
Lucian also had two daughters Annie and Annabel by his first marriage in 1948 to Kitty Garman — daughter of sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein.
Then he had five children by Suzy Boyt, a former student of Freud’s at the Slade art school in London, who was the subject of Freud’s painting Woman Smiling.
Suzy gave birth to a son, Alexander, in 1957, followed by four more children, novelist Rose Boyt, Isobel, author Susie Boyt and Kai.
Bella’s mother Bernandine Coverley, who was just 18 when she gave birth to Bella. Her birth was caught on canvas after Freud made her the subject of his painting Pregnant Girl, 1960-61
Bella lost both her parents within days of each other after her mother passed away in July 2011 just four days after the legendary painter’s death (pictured with her mum and sister Esther)
But over the same period of years, Freud also fathered four more offspring with Katharine McAdam, a fashion student at St Martin’s art college, where Freud was taking occasional life-drawing classes.
Jane, Paul, Lucy and David — once known as the ‘forgotten Freuds’ — were born between 1958 and 1964, and spent their early years living in Paddington, West London, close to their father’s studio.
However, after their mother discovered the extent of Freud’s philandering, they did not see their father until they were adults.
As well as Bella and Esther with Bernadine, Freud also had a son, Frank, with the painter Celia Paul.
