Lady Colin Campbell
| Lady Colin Campbell | |
|---|---|
| Born |
George William Ziadie 17 August 1949 St Andrew, Jamaica |
| Residence | Kennington, London, England |
| Occupation | Author, socialite, radio hostess |
| Spouse(s) | Lord Colin Campbell (m. 1974; div. 1975) |
| Children | 2 |
Georgia Arianna, Lady Colin Campbell (née Ziadie; born 17 August 1949) is a Jamaican-born British writer, socialite, and television and radio personality. She has published three books about the British Royal Family. They include biographies of Diana, Princess of Wales, which was on The New York Times bestseller list in 1992, and Queen Elizabeth. She has also written two autobiographies, one exploring her mother.
Georgia Ziadie was born in Jamaica in 1949, one of four children of Michael and Gloria Ziadie. A genital malformation (a fused labia and deformed clitoris) led to the assumption that she was male at birth and she was christened George William. Though her family life was otherwise happy, Campbell has spoken and written of the struggles she faced being raised as a boy when she was physically female.
Her family, the Ziadies, were prominent in Jamaica. Their father was descended from one of six brothers who emigrated from Lebanon in the early 20th century; they were Maronite Catholics. Her mother was also Catholic, of English, Irish, Portuguese and Spanish descent, and her maternal great-grandmother was a Sephardic Jew.
Campbell moved from Jamaica to New York City to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology. She was not able to have corrective surgery until she was 21, when her grandmother discovered what had occurred and gave her the $5,000 she needed. At that time, Ziadie legally changed her name to Georgia Arianna and received a new birth certificate.
"No one ever faced the knife more eagerly than I. You would have thought I was going on a wonderful cruise – which, in a way, I suppose I was," Campbell wrote in her autobiography. She had already started working as a model in New York City prior to her surgery and was considered a great beauty.
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