Her first job paid £1.50 an hour and at one point she had to subsist on just £52 a week on Jobseeker’s Allowance.
No wonder then that despite being an award-winning pop star, KT Tunstall is still shrewd enough to earn extra income selling the glitzy clothes she has worn at a slew of showbiz events.
The chart-topping artist, whose smash hit Suddenly I See was used on the soundtrack for Hollywood film The Devil Wears Prada, has listed 78 garments on her eBay sellers page.
Items up for auction range from a £22 pink knitted scarf to a £350 pair of patent leather heels made by designer Manolo Blahnik, whose footwear was a regular feature in US drama Sex and the City.
The most popular garment for sale so far is an autographed hat that looks like a cartoon squid the singer wore in the video for It Took Me So Long.
Other outfits and accessories up for grabs include a red dress she wore on the Today Show in the US; a silver glittery playsuit worn at a New Year’s Eve gig in New York in 2022; and Vivienne Westwood silver heels worn at the Q Awards in 2005.
KT Tunstall wearing the blue blazer on her album cover
These leather boots can be snapped up for £100
KTs clearout includes this £250 blue jacket that she wore on an album sleeve
The items will fetch thousands for the singer if they all sell at the price they are listed at. A message on her social media page alerted fans to the ongoing sale, stating: ‘I have updated the eBay store with new (old) items.’
Ms Tunstall, 49, who lives in Los Angeles, shot to fame in 2004 after singing Black Horse and the Cherry Tree on Later… with Jools Holland.
She has spoken in the past about securing her first job aged 15, working in an ice cream parlour in her hometown of St Andrews on £1.50 an hour and how she later struggled on benefits as she tried to build a musical career.
She had said: ‘I lived on £52 of dole money a week. Some would say that is leeching off the system, but I’ve paid millions in tax now that I would never have paid if I’d got a normal job.’