Kelly Brook has admitted she finds it ‘very uncomfortable’ that she was sexualised from the age of 16 after a swimsuit photoshoot kickstarted her glamour modelling career.
The radio presenter, 45, who is set to star in I’m A Celebrity, got a modelling agent when she was just a teenager and soon became one of the biggest page three models in the UK.
Speaking on this week’s How To Fail With Elizabeth Day podcast, Kelly revealed the swimsuit photoshoot in Portugal was her first ever job and entering into the industry so young, made her ‘grow up really quickly’.
Kelly said: ‘My first job was glamour modelling. It was on a swimwear shoot in Portugal on a beach with amateur photographers, not even professional photographers. They would pay to take pictures of you and your bikini. That was a job.’
When Elizabeth asked how it made her feel, Kelly said it was ‘quite strange’.
‘I had to grow up really quickly. I went to school in London from the age of 11. I would get on the train every day and I was very grown up for my age,’ she said.
Kelly Brook admitted she finds it ‘very uncomfortable’ that she was sexualised from the age of 16 after a swimsuit photoshoot kickstarted her glamour modelling career (pictured 1997)
The radio presenter, 45, who is set to star in I’m A Celebrity , got a modelling agent when she was just a teenager and soon became one of the biggest page three models in the UK
‘I didn’t have much of a childhood in terms of that. It was like going to school in London was quite a big deal and I wasn’t chaperoned or anything, so I always felt older than my years and quite mature for my years anyway.
‘Being sexualised like that at such a young age was very uncomfortable. I’ve never felt like a sexy woman. I’m like a clown. I like to make people laugh.
‘I like to have egg on my face, I’m like quirky in that respect so to be sexualised and to be seen as sexy was just a bit of a strange thing that didn’t really resonate with my soul. My physical appearance and my soul are two different things.’
Kelly admitted she never actively set out to have a career in glamour modelling but fell into it.
It began after she won a beauty competition, into which her mother had entered her. She soon became keen to earn money in the hope it would help her life at home.
Kelly said she naively thought success and money would stop her parents from fighting and drinking heavily.
She said: ‘The swimsuit job actually was something that came along through someone that knew my mother at the time, actually so that wasn’t something that I necessarily pursued.
‘I got a model agent from the age of 16. She was a lady called Samantha Bond, and she looked after a lot of glamour models.’
Zoe Ball, Kelly, Melinda Messenger and Anthea Turner pictured in 1998
Kelly joins a star-studded line-up for this year’s I’m A Celebrity, which will launch on Sunday
‘I couldn’t really sign with a fashion agency at that time because I was very curvy. I remember going into the agency in my school uniform and I said, “I won’t do page three and I won’t do topless, but I’ll definitely do lingerie and swimwear”.
‘I was very happy with that and they booked me for lots of different jobs. I did pop videos and commercials and all sorts of things. I had a couple of years of working quite a lot and really enjoying myself and doing quite well.’
Elsewhere in the podcast, Kelly revealed the reason she split ex-fiancé Jason Statham.
The former model began dating the movie star, 58, in 1997, with the pair even getting engaged before they split in 2004.
Kelly admitted during her seven-year relationship with Jason, she ended up putting her own career on hold in order to help his succeed.
She said: ‘I think definitely in my first relationship there was definitely elements of co-dependency. There were elements of me putting my career and my life on hold.
‘I had a really good job at MTV. I remember I was hosting a daily show there, and it was just after I’d got fired off The Big Breakfast and I got a really great show there and I was there for about a year and my boyfriend at the time was an actor.
‘I remember he got offered a few roles in things, as like a bouncer on the door at in EastEnders doing something and he had so much talent and charisma and I was like, “Do you know what? We just got to go to America. I just think it’s going to be the making of us if we just go”.’
She went on to explain after moving to Los Angeles, Jason soon began to find success on the silver screen, eventually becoming one of Hollywood’s biggest action stars, with her as his ‘support network’.
Kelly admitted that during her seven-year relationship with Jason, she ended up putting her own career on hold in order to help his succeed (seen in 2000)
However, she confessed that while his career skyrocketed, her own ‘floundered’, admitting that she felt ‘neglected’ when he failed to give her the same support that she’d given him
However, she confessed while his career skyrocketed, her own ‘floundered’, admitting that she felt ‘neglected’ when he failed to give her the same support that she’d given him.
She recalled: ‘But I had this really good job and we had no money and I quit my job and we went and I was there as this support network for him and watched his career flourish, whereas mine floundered a bit because I didn’t have the same opportunities.
‘I was just flying back and forth between the UK and LA and it was quite taxing and expensive and it was exhausting.
‘His career just took off and it just became the most incredible thing because I did so much and didn’t look after myself, I just felt so neglected in that dynamic and to the point where I actually fell out of love with him in the end because he hadn’t showed up for me like I’d showed up for him, I didn’t feel.’
She explained she made the call to end the relationship because she felt Jason ‘didn’t know who I was anymore’, and while it was difficult it was ‘the best decision’.
Kelly said: ‘So we broke up and I think he just turned around to me and was like, “Why are you leaving now? Look I’m a movie star and I’m a millionaire, why now?”
‘And I was like, “You just haven’t been there, you haven’t been there for me and I need to become a woman. During this process, I’ve become a woman and I don’t think you know who I am anymore. You know the girl that quit MTV and came with you, but you don’t know the woman”.
‘So it was just a really hard time, but I think that was the first time where I really did something for myself and it was the best decision.’
After alluding to the identity of the ex-boyfriend in question, Kelly confirmed to Elizabeth that it had been Jason.
Jason went on to find love with Victoria’s Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley in 2010, with the pair now engaged and parents to children, Jack, eight, and Isabella, three.
Kelly, meanwhile, married her model boyfriend Jeremy Parisi, 40, in 2022.
