She is the second daughter of Hugh Campbell, 6th Earl Cawdor (1932–1993), by his first wife, the former Cathryn Hinde.

Campbell was raised in Cawdor Castle during the Sixties, and studied art at Chelsea.

She dated Pakistani cricketer (later Pakistan prime minister) Imran Khan for several years.

[4][5] In 1990, she married William Robert Charles "Willie" Athill, a big-game fisherman, with whom she lived on a desert island for two years.

On 22 June 2013 the New York Times quoted Campbell in an article that described the law of primogeniture as a legacy instance of sexism, "The posh aspect of it blinds people to what is essentially sexism in a privileged minority, where girls are born less than boys.