‘To be totally the focus of someone, who was really into sex, was fantastic’: Tracey Emin and Billy Childish on their blazing romance
Never was a couple so combustible, but their relationship in the 80s would influence their entire life’s work. In an extract from a new biography of Childish, the pair, who are somehow still friends, give their side of the story
Wednesday 3 July 2024
Bill Lewis – Billy Childish’s great friend and collaborator in the Medway Poets and other endeavours since 1978 – says that Tracey Emin and Billy Childish are two people who should never have been together, romantically. You will not find anybody who knows either who disagrees with this assessment. And yet, Billy Childish and Tracey Emin were romantically together between 1982 and 1985.