Rosie warns new models
WHO says ballroom dancing for men is for sissies? As the new series of Strictly Come Dancing approaches, former England cricketer Phil Tufnell says he was the fittest he’s ever been in his life when he did the show – fitter even than when he was an international sportsman,
Phil, 52, below, who took part in 2009, tells Day & Night: “I was fit as a fiddle after I finished that show.
“I’ve never been fitter. Seven or eight hours a day practise and what have you. I enjoyed myself and learnt a new skill. A pleasurable experience and I managed to come away with a few moves as well!”
Currently the front man of a campaign by Tena to encourage men over 40 with bladder weakness to carry on playing sport, Phil, who isn’t a sufferer himself, adds that he still calls on his Strictly skills when he wants to impress Mrs Tufnell: “I occasionally still have a little dance round the kitchen with my wife… messing about!” HAVING spent 15 years in the spotlight, Rosie HuntingtonWhiteley knows the modelling industry better than most – and she reckons more needs to be done to keep young women who are starting out safe.
Rosie, 31, below, says: “I don’t think young models are protected enough. There was always this encouragement that you should ‘be free’, ‘be wild’, ‘the more you relax the more work is going to come your way’.
“I am very lucky that I never had an experience that has left me deeply scarred.”
The partner of action-film star Jason Statham has been one of the nation’s best known models over the past decade since bursting on to the scene on Vogue in 2008.
But Rosie admits to PorterEdit magazine
that even she has, at times, felt uncomfortable in her line of work “There were certain things that were just not OK, comments tha were made or expectations that were put on you, and professional lines were crossed,” she says. “The sort of conversations were ‘Well, he might want to take some photographs of you at his house and it might be a bit sexy so, you know, if you’re happy to go along.’ “Almost like, the looser you were and the more ‘rock’n’roll’ you were about things, then that was the way to be. “Looking back now, there were a lot of instances where you were unprotected and that really starts with the agents, as [the] people who take a huge commission from young women.”