KELLY: ‘Thinking about babies makes me anxious’
The former model opens up about marriage, why she may never have a baby, and discovering her true passion
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She’s become one of the nation’s most recognisable pin-ups, with a modelling and TV career spanning over two decades. But despite finding fame and fortune, Kelly Brook admits she struggles with insecurities.
Kelly, 39, tells us, “I’m happy, but I still have my hang-ups. As I’ve grown older, they’ve just become a little different. I’ve come to terms with the fact I’m not going to be a young, skinny model forever. I dealt with that when I hit 30. But these days, it’s more like, ‘I’m not married, I’ve not had kids – where am I at in my career?’”
BABY FEARS
The star – who has been dating judo instructor Jeremy Parisi for over two years – recently admitted on Loose Women she feels “up against it”, wishing she’d thought about having a baby earlier. And reflecting on her two heartbreaking miscarriages with ex-fiancé and Scottish rugby player Thom Evans in 2011, she candidly explained she didn’t know if she would ever carry a child.
Opening up now, Kelly says, “I do get anxiety about whether I want children and to get married, I think about those things a lot. I don’t know if it’s for me, to be honest, and I think that’s why it makes me feel anxious. I’m so happy with how everything’s going in my life – I suppose I don’t see where it would fit in right now.”
Last month, Kelly revealed she’d lost more than a stone in three months, after piling on the pounds when she fell for her food-loving French-italian boyfriend. But the model – who was once hailed as one of the sexiest women in the world – admits she’d nearly written herself off after going up two dress sizes, to a size 16.
She explains, “I’m approaching 40 this year and I’m so known for how I look... yet I think there was an element of me that thought, ‘ Well, it’s all over now. I’m getting older, I’m putting on weight, that’s it – I’m finished!’ So I did more daytime TV and wore baggier dresses and I just fell into a comfort zone, it didn’t feel like me.”
But size 12 Kelly, who admitted to editing her selfies to hide her extra curves, says she’s regained her confidence since shaving four inches from her hips with a mealreplacement diet. She adds, “Now that I’ve lost the weight, I feel healthier and happier. I’m still curvy and I feel like I have more presence when I walk into a room – I think it’s different when you’re skinnier.”
And while many celebrities do everything in their power to reverse the ageing process, Kelly is opposed to cosmetic surgery. Last year, she said she was “appalled” by the plastic surgery adverts shown during Love Island, and maintains she’d never go under the knife.
“I’d never want big, juicy, blow-up lips!” she laughs, before adding, “I think surgery can be ageing. If I started having fillers, it’d put another ten years on me. I had acne when I was younger, so I have a lot of facials and peels, and now my skin is better than it was in my twenties.”
PARTY LIFESTYLE
In the past, Kelly was a firm fixture on the red carpet, but these days the star favours cosy nights in with Jeremy, 33, at their 15th-century Kent farmhouse.
She explains, “The perception is that I’ve always had a party lifestyle, yet I live out in the countryside now. I hardly go on nights out, I’m so boring! Jeremy and I are blissfully co-dependent, all we do is hang out with each other.”
And Kelly believes being closer to nature has been restorative. She says, “Being out in the garden helps with my mental health. The best bit is to be able to put my mobile down for a few hours and be in my flower beds, or in my potting shed. It’s just me, the wildlife and my land. I grow my own vegetables and cook from scratch – I’m much more connected to the environment.
“Living in the city felt superficial, it was all about how you look – and I’m much more comfortable in Kent. My home life is sorted and my relationship is great.”
‘I hardly go on nights out, I’m so boring!’