Former CBeebies presenter Sarah Jane Honeywell has revealed she’s struggled to afford to use her heating due to rising bills.
The presenter, 51 was a star of the children’s channel from 2002 to 2011, but later lose her job shortly after posing topless on a giant plate of food in central London for a Peta campaign in 2011.
Sarah now presents on BBC Radio Lincolnshire, and while fronting Monday’s mid-morning show, she spoke to her listeners about the impact of the rising cost of living.
She said: ‘A few years ago I didn’t put my heating on at all over the winter because it had gone up so much, I just could not afford to put my heating on.
‘We do have a log fire which I know is a bit naughty.’
Referring to social media star Thrifty Mum, a regular on the show, she added: ‘This year thrifty Mum would not be proud of me because I haven’t even ordered the logs yet for the fire.
Former CBeebies presenter Sarah Jane Honeywell has revealed she’s struggled to afford to use her heating due to rising bills
‘I am really hoping it doesn’t get too cold until at least the end of October when hopefully I will have hopefully scraped some money together to either pay my heating or pay for some logs.’
Sarah joined the CBeebies as a presenter for popular show Tikkabilla, and then went on to co-host Tweenies, star in ZingZillas and present Mighty Mites, and she was also the links presenter for the channel.
The TV and radio personality worked for the BBC children’s channel when she agreed to a PETA campaign which involved her posing nearly-naked.
The 2011 photographs showed her lying in a pair of nude knickers with her hands covering her modesty, while lying on a plate of food in London’s Trafalgar Square.
However, the charity campaign sent her world crashing down around her, as she revealed she was suicidal and facing £100,00 of debt.
Speaking about the ordeal to The Sun’s Fabulous magazine, Sarah-Jane said: ‘I felt like I’d let my husband down. I’d let my parents down. I’d let everybody down.
‘I walked to the train station in Liverpool and, I hadn’t thought I was going to kill or hurt myself, but it was like a compulsion.
‘It was like, ‘I need to jump’. And then I remember my little boy kicking and that shocked me out of it.
The presenter, 51 was a star of the children’s channel from 2002 to 2011 (pictured), but later lose her job shortly after posing topless on a giant plate of food for a Peta campaign
Sarah previously said that after posing for the topless campaig (pictured), her work offers dried up and she struggled to pay her debts
Sarah-Jane is mother to her two children, Indiana, seven, and Phoenix, nine, with her husband Ayden Callaghan, who previously starred in Hollyoaks.
She got the job aged 29 in 2001 and was earning around £300 per episode.
Sarah-Jane clicked with her co-star Justin Fletcher, who played Mr Tumble, however she claimed he ghosted her once the photos were released.
The former kid’s TV star admitted she was shocked by the strict regulation on the channel, as she was once scolded for getting a tattoo of fairy wings on her back.
Sarah-Jane described having to be ‘squeaky, squeaky clean’.
However, she insisted she didn’t think the racy snaps for PETA would be a problem and she claimed they originally told her she would be wearing underwear.
Sarah-Jane recalled calling Justin because she had a bad feeling but said that she never heard from him of any of the other Cbeebies stars again.
She said that she discovered through a newspaper article that the BBC had said she no longer worked on the channel.
The backlash she received was massive and someone even set up a ‘I Hate Sarah-Jane Honeywell’ Facebook group to troll her.
In the coming years, Sarah said her work offers dried up and she struggled to pay her debts, by March 2015 she had hit rock bottom and wanted to end her life.
However after feeling her unborn baby, Phoenix, kick she was given hope for the future and named him because he ‘rose from the ashes’.
