The rise and downfall of 90s glamour models after the lads' mag industry went bust – from Katie Price to Kelly Brook

The Sun

2 days ago

THESE days, you can find and even chat to with hotties on Instagram and the notorious subscription site OnlyFans.
However, long before social media had become such an integral part of our daily lives, you'd find heaps of admirers legging to their local corner shop - where they'd snap up a glossy lads' magazine.
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From FHM to Loaded, to Nuts and Zoo, the options were practically endless, filled with after page of sexy and busty bombshells.
Then arrived the 2000s.
The global internet boon and changing views on glamour modelling hit the industry hard, leaving many faces - once plastered across bedroom walls all over the country - hunting for fresh gigs.
From homelessness and post-natal depression to a 26-year age gap marriage, here's where the 90s glamour models are now, decades after their racy stints.
Keeley Hazell
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Hailing from Lewisham, in southeast London, and born to a dinner lady mum and window-fitter dad, Keeley was skyrocketed to fame when she won the Daily Star's Search for a Beach Babe contest aged just 17.
The young beauty quickly won hearts with her playful attitude and comments, such as: "If I'm swimming in a pool and my bikini pops off, I'm not bothered – I'll just carry on.''
The Londoner soon became a fan favourite, landing gigs with Loaded, Nuts, Zoo, and FHM, which dubbed her Kentish melon farmer.
At the peak of her career, Keeley was living out her wildest dreams, '' travelling all the time''
''I was earning a lot of money. At the time you don't realise and I look back and think 'that was crazy','' said the former Page 3 girl who turned 38 last September.
Keeley once topped the list as the glamour model with more racy snaps than anyone else - but she hung up her bikini in 2009 when her earnings plummeted from a whopping £30,000 a shoot to a measly £1,000 due to dipping magazine sales.
Keeley then invested in acting lessons in Los Angeles, going on to appear in the acclaimed 2011's Like Crazy, British gangster flick St George's Da,y and the Hollywood hit Horrible Bosses 2.
On the set of Horrible Bosses, Keeley met fellow actor Jason Sudeikis, who was dating actress and director Olivia Wilde at the time.
Then, in 2020, she began starring in Ted Lasso, a sports comedy-drama, staying in the role until the show's finale three years later and even co-writing an episode.
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Keeley was reunited with her Horrible Bosses co-star, Jason, 49, as he played Ted, and the two were briefly dating from 2021 to 2022.
On Keeley's Instagram, her bio pokes fun at her previous career, reading: ''Livin' my breast life''.
Her debut memoir, Everyone's Seen My T**s, will be released on August 26, 2025.
Gail Porter
Gail, from Edinburgh, Scotland, initially made a name for herself after she hosted Fully Booked and Top of the Pops.
The Scottish TV personality soon expanded her career to become a favourite of the lads' mags in the late 1990s and even had her naked rear projected onto the Houses of Parliament to promote FHM magazine's 100 sexiest women poll in 1999.
The glamour model tied the knot with Toploader guitarist Dan Hipgrave in 2001 and welcomed daughter Honey a year later.
But life outside the glossy magazines was different - Gail was privately battling post-natal depression and after her marriage ended in 2005, she was also hit with alopecia and lost all her hair.
"It was absolutely terrifying, I didn't know what was going on," she later bravely recounted.
"We didn't have any therapy, we just sat there. People were crying and acting quite strangely, obviously.
''I was drugged up to my eyeballs and found it all very distressing."
Then in 2017, Gail, who is now 54, faced the darkest time of her life when she declared bankruptcy and found herself homeless, resorting to sleeping on a park bench in Hampstead Heath.
"Those were the scariest nights of my life. There were lots of terrifying noises. I had no idea what they were.
''I was freezing and I didn't know who was coming for me," she previously shared with The Sun.
Back in 2017, the Scot exclusively told The Sun how she was left homeless for a year - and lived off Marmite on toast.
She was declared "bankrupt" during that year and lived off £200 a month - and credited being left penniless to her alopecia battle.
"Losing my hair was a big thing. I was OK with it and people around me would say it was fine but people stopped booking me for TV work," she explained.
"The jobs that were coming so freely during the nineties weren't there for me any more. By then I was renting a place and my savings started to dribble away.
In 2015, Gail agreed to appear on Celebrity Big Brother in an attempt to solve her cash woes.
Yet she has now turned a corner and claimed she is "no longer ashamed" of her body following a life-changing breast reduction.
Now back on track, in 2024 we reported how she "loved being blonde again" after donning a wig for the very first time.
Abi Titmuss
Abi Titmuss shot to fame in the noughties as John Leslie's girlfriend, appearing in a threesome sex tape with the disgraced ex-Blue Peter host, before going on to start a new life in the US.
The ex-lads' mag favourite, now 49, first came to the public's attention when the then-nurse was pictured alongside Leslie as he attended court in 2003, when a sexual assault case against him collapsed.
At a time when lads' mags were flying off the shelves, she famously ranked seventh by FHM in their 2005 list of the 100 Sexiest Women in the World.
After causing headlines while leaving court with John, Abi went on to feature on the front page of various lads' magazines - including Nuts, Loaded and FHM.
She told Femail back in 2012: ''I didn't think I deserved the attention, so the more money I earned, the worse I felt.
''I could make £30,000 for a shoot but I knew how third-rate I was. I could feel my lack of discernible talent as though I was wearing it.''
She later told the publication: ''Suddenly I was being offered a lot of money to do shoots. I thought I could handle it. But I couldn't.
''They created this caricature of a person that I didn't recognise. I was always the same Abigail inside.
''I studied Latin at school, I'm from a good family. But the image that was created was nonsense.''
Abi left her pin-up career behind in the mid-noughties to study the craft of acting at the renowned Central School of Speech and Drama, subsequently bagging a role on BBC's Casualty in 2012.
Her next big leap took her stateside, landing the role of Nurse Jackie in hit soap Days of Our Lives, where she found love with Ari Welkom.
In a January 2015 revelation on Loose Women, Abi declared she had rebranded herself as Abigail Evelyn, stepping away from her former glamour modelling past.
Two years later, in May 2017, she tied the know with Ari while she was 21 weeks pregnant with their first child.
"I met Ari when I was 38 and got pregnant naturally at 40," Abi told to the Loose Women panel.
Kelly Brook
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With envious curves, it's no wonder that Kelly Brook was once crowned FHM's Sexiest Woman in the World.
Having burst onto the glamour scene in 1997, Kelly soon became adored by readers as a Page 3 icon, and graced FHM's Sexiest countdown with her presence annually until its closure in 2015.
Now aged 45, Kelly had a tragic stint presenting the Big Breakfast in 1999 before quitting just a few months later, amid claims she stumbled over the pronunciation of bigger words.
Kelly bounced back, hosting Celebrity Love Island in the early 2000s and getting engaged to 90s heartthrob Billy Zane.
Their engagement came to an end and the pair eventually parted ways in 2008.
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Unfortunately, Kelly faced more heartache when, in 2011, she experienced devastating loss – a miscarriage five months into her pregnancy with then-boyfriend, rugby ace Thom Evans, followed by yet another later that same year.
Their relationship couldn't weather the storm, with the rugby legend relocating to Los Angeles for his modelling gig soon after.
"When I brought up the subject of marriage and children, the colour drained from his face," Kelly revealed in her autobiography.
She claimed: "He wanted to focus on his 'new life' in LA - a wife and children would slow him down. He didn't want to be in a relationship anymore. It was obvious."
Nowadays, she lives in Kent alongside her model hubby Jeremy Parisi, 39 and hosted the drive time show on Heart London.
Leilani Dowding
Leilani Dowding didn't have just stunning looks - the brainy beauty studied economics at the University of London and claimed the title of Miss Great Britain before becoming a hit on lads' mags.
However, she ditched it all for a life in Los Angeles in the mid-noughties, where she later married Raquel Welch's ex-husband, restaurant mogul Richie Palmer.
Despite the love they shared, they struggled with the 26-year age gap - which ultimately led to divorce due to conflicting views on starting a family.
Speaking out against accusations of being a gold digger on VH1's Tough Love Miami, Leilani hit back: "I was the one who wanted to get divorced from my ex.
''He just assumed I would want something from it and offered me a huge settlement.
''Because it was my choice, I didn't ask for anything."
Tackling assumptions, she went on: "Because he is a lot older, people assume that yes, I was a gold digger. My ex husband was amazing and such a gentlemen.
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"But he didn't want kids and I did. That is why we didn't work out. We are still friends and if he ever thought I was just out for money, he would probably never speak to me again."
Leilani, now 45, joined The Real Housewives of Cheshire in series nine following the departure of original Housewife, Lauren Simon.
But after just one series, Leilani confirmed she would be departing the popular show.
Katie Price
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Perhaps Katie Price wouldn't be the household name she is now if it hadn't been for her pal who suggested Katie to have professional snaps taken of her.
The photos were then sent to a modelling agency in London and in 1996 we were introduced to Jordan, her pseudonym, on Page 3 - and the rest is history.
As Jordan, Price was famed for her surgically enhanced breasts, after first increasing her natural 32B to a 32FF when she was just 20.
Katie also regularly appeared in the Daily Star, FHM, the British edition of Playboy, Nuts, Maxim, Loaded, Vogue and Esquire and also more bizarrely, attempted to have a career in politics.
When Katie ran as a candidate in Stretford and Urmston during the 2001 UK general election, the pin-up received a measly 713 votes - or a shocking 1.8% of the votes cast.
Since then, Katie - who's had almost 20 boob jobs - has also appeared on TV screens in shows such as Footballers' Wives and I'm a Celebrity where she met Aussie pop star Peter Andre.
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The jungle romance resulted in Katie marrying the Mysterious Girl hitmaker in 2005, before they eventually divorced in 2009 after having two kids, Junior and Princess.
Katie's love life has been just as exciting as her career - fresh from her break-up with Peter, Katie enjoyed a whirlwind relationship and marriage with cage fighter Alex Reid that lasted almost two years.
The Page 3 legend and former Loose Women panellist has also briefly dated model Danny Cipriani and got engaged to Argentinian model Leandro Penna in 2011.
Wedding bells rang once more after Katie met Kieran Hayler in 2013. They had two kids together, Jett and Bunny, before their break-up and divorce.
Between 2018 ans 2019, Katie moved on quickly with Kris Boyson. They had an on-off romance for one year and even got engaged. The pair split for good in 2019.
Following a brief stunt with Charles Drury, car salesman Carl Woods took a shining to Katie in 2020. Their tremulous relationship was up and down for three years. They broke for a final time in 2023.
As of now, the mum-of-five is in a relationship with Married At First Sight star, JJ Slater, 32.
Katie Price's Surgery: A Timeline
1998 - Katie underwent her first breast augmentation taking her from a natural B cup to a C cup. She also had her first liposuction
1999 - Katie had two more boob jobs in the same year, one taking her from a C cup to a D cup, and then up to an F cup
2006 - Katie went under the knife to take her breasts up to a G cup
2007 - Katie had a rhinoplasty and veneers on her teeth
2008 - Katie stunned fans by reducing her breasts from an F cup to a C cup
2011 - Going back to an F cup, Katie also underwent body-contouring treatment and cheek and lip fillers
2014/5 - Following a nasty infection, Katie had her breast implants removed
2016 - Opting for bigger breasts yet again, Katie had another set of implants, along with implants, Botox and lip fillers
2017 - After a disastrous 'threading' facelift, Katie also had her veneers replaced. She also had her eighth boob job taking her to a GG cup
2018 - Katie went under the knife yet again for a facelift
2019 - After jetting to Turkey, Katie had a face, eye and eyelid lift, Brazilian bum lift and a tummy tuck
2020 - Katie has her 12th boob job in Belgium to correct botched surgery and a new set of veneers
2021 - In a complete body overhaul, she opts for eye and lip lifts, liposuction under her chin, fat injected into her bum and full body liposuction
2022 - Katie undergoes another brow and eye lift-and undergoes 'biggest ever' boob job in Belgium, her 16th in total
2023 - Opting for a second rhinoplasty, Katie also gets a lip lift at the same time as well as new lip filler throughout the year
2024 - Katie has her 17th boob job in Brussels after revealing she wanted to downsize. She performed at Dublin Pride just days later and surgeons warned the lack of recovery posed a risk of infection
Back in March this year, Katie was discharged from her second bankruptcy - and has now vowed to claw back her lost £100million fortune.
It brings to an end six years of financial hell for the 46-year-old model, and she has now been discharged from her second bankruptcy, relating to an unpaid tax bill of over £750,000.
The star thanked fans for their support following a Zoom call with her lawyer, telling The Sun: "I'm so happy. "I can finally move on and put these bankruptcies behind me and now only focus on the positive.
'Thank you to everyone that has supported me through this process."
Once reported to have made £20million from her books, Katie has now unveiled plans to make £500MILLION in the next three years, and turn her financial situation around.
She declared: "New year's resolution, if that's the right word, is I want to make about 500 million in about three years."