Ex glamour model Nicola McLean has said that she has ‘no regrets’ over bunking off school to pose in her underwear at 16.
The former I’m A Celebrity and Celebrity Big Brother star, 44, said the pros outweighed the cons when it came to her decisions and that her modelling work helped her escape from the council estate she grew up in.
Nicola has posed for the likes of Playboy, GQ, Loaded and FHM after winning a swimsuit competition when she was a teen and went on to have a successful TV career.
Now in her mid forties she has reflected on being a young woman in the industry – after fellow ex glamour model Kelly Brook recently said she felt uncomfortable at being ‘sexualised’ at such a young age.
Nicola is more positive about things that Kelly, saying she would never have been asked to do I’m A Celeb or many other things in her career if she hadn’t been a model first.
She told The Sun: ‘I will never not be proud of my choices even though I was probably too young to make them.
Ex glamour model Nicola McLean has said that she has ‘no regrets’ over bunking off school to pose in her underwear at 16
The former I’m A Celebrity and Celebrity Big Brother star, 44, said the pros outweighed the cons when it came to her decisions and that her modelling work helped her escape from the council estate she grew up in
‘I feel like the reason I’m thick skinned and don’t take any s**t is because of the situations I navigated so young in a male-dominated industry. I held my own and didn’t get forced into doing anything I wasn’t comfortable with
‘I knew if I stuck to my plan I would go on and do something with that platform, so when I’m A Celebrity started when I was 19 and remember saying ‘I will do this one day’.’
She said that seeing the show was a ‘lightbulb moment’ and that if she worked hard she would one day get the chance to go on it.
However her rise to fame and choice of work did have downsides as she says she battled an eating disorder and probably wouldn’t have got a boob job if she hadn’t been a glamour model.
Just last month Nicola claimed Kelly asked for help with a cheating ex-boyfriend – only for the star to brutally snub her later.
Nicola took part in the ITV show back in 2008, when Joe Swash was crowned King of the Jungle.
Although having met Kelly ‘quite a few times’ and liking her, Nicola admitted the two ‘did have a situation’.
Nicola has posed for the likes of Playboy, GQ, Loaded and FHM after winning a swimsuit competition when she was a teen and went on to have a successful TV career (on I’m A Celeb)
Now in her mid forties she has reflected on being a young woman in the industry – after fellow ex glamour model Kelly Brook recently said she felt uncomfortable at being ‘sexualised’
Nicola is more positive about it that Kelly, saying she would never have been asked to do I’m A Celeb (seen on the show) or many other things in her career if she hadn’t been a model first
Speaking in November, Nicola described the 45-year-old as ‘the most beautiful person’.
She added: ‘When one of her boyfriends was cheating, she phoned me because I knew who he was cheating on her with, and I helped her for the whole day.’
However, Nicola did not disclose the identity of Kelly’s former partner.
Nicola added: ‘She was nuts, and I’m like ‘good for you for being nuts’. I’d be nuts as well. I mean I’m not involved in the situation.
‘I’m just being a girl’s girl. She b****y unfollowed me afterwards and I was like, ‘oh, cheers Kelly!”
Kelly married Jeremy Parisi in 2022 and prior to this, had been in multiple high profile relationships.
She was previously engaged to Jason Statham, Billy Zane and Thom Evans respectively.
Back in June Nicola shared her fears about girls who use OnlyFans, as she revealed young girls are getting ‘addicted to money and get pushed into extreme behaviour.’
The ex-Page Three girl said the subscription service encourages women to push their limits because they feel there is always someone ready to take their place.
Reflecting on the recent antics of pornographic actress Bonnie Blue, Nicola exclusively told The Daily Mail that she was worried that teenage girls will also think ‘if I don’t do this they will queue up for someone else’.
Bonnie Blue, whose real name is Tia Emma, is a pornographic content creator who is known for having sex with ‘barely legal boys’ and telling married men that if their wives won’t have enough sex with them, she will instead.
Nicola explained that the subscription service and the behaviours promoted by the likes of Bonnie Blue encourages women to go far beyond their limits in order to keep up with other creators and sustain their income.
The glamour model told The Daily Mail: ‘I just worry that, that girls and I know, because I know girls that have gone further than they ever would because they get addicted to the money.’
‘What I fear is that with this, with OnlyFans, and it’s not just OnlyFans, but I fear that the money is too alluring to girls and men’, she added.
‘It’s all creators. So for the first month, they earn £1,000 let’s say, some people it’s much, much more.
‘And then, people go, Oh, well, I could get someone doing more for less, so I’ll move.
‘And then they don’t earn the money, so then they have to go further and further and you push your own boundaries constantly
And you get desensitised to what you’re doing constantly. Where when I did what I did, we only needed to do what we were doing and still earn the same money.’
Nicola said she thinks is it ‘scary’ because the younger generation are going to see content creators like Bonnie Blue and push their limits far beyond what they are comfortable with.
She said: ‘I worry that that’s what younger generations are gonna see. They’re gonna see Bonnie Blue on TikTok saying, basically, if you don’t service your man, I will.
‘So then people are going to do it when they don’t want to do it. That’s what I worry about.
‘That’s what I think is so scary and worrying, where Page Three Girls would never have said that.
‘Page Three Girls were girl next door that was like, ”Don’t worry, we don’t want your man. We do not want your man.” Our picture is us smiling on a page we were the girl next door.
‘That’s what we were meant to be. The girls that could live next door to you. Bonnie Blue is basically saying, if your mum isn’t having sex with your dad, I will.
Nicola started modelling aged 15, appeared on the front page of the Daily Star in her underwear aged 16 and featured in her first topless shoot aged 18 (seen in 2008)
‘And if your girlfriend’s not having sex with you, I will. And it doesn’t matter if you’re barely legal. Just queue up and I’ll sort you out.
‘So then I worry that wives think ”oh my God, we have to do s**t we don’t want to do”, but I worry that teenage girls will think, ”oh my God, if I don’t do it, it’ll queue up for Bonnie Blue”.
Nicola who shares Rocky, 18, and Striker, 13, with husband Tom Williams, went on to say that if she would relive her life now, she would never be tempted to join the likes of Only Fans or be tempted to go further than pose topless.
She began her career by posing topless for lads’ mags and Page 3 back in the early 2000s and had her first boob job at 22 years old.
Nicola started modelling aged 15, appeared on the front page of the Daily Star in her underwear aged 16 and featured in her first topless shoot aged 18.
