The death of Page 3 girls: As glamour models are axed for good, how topless snaps launched careers of Britain’s most famous pin-ups

It launched the careers of Katie Price, Samantha Fox and more.

But it’s officially curtains for Page 3 girls as the last remaining tabloid to feature the busty pin-ups has decided it’s all over.

‘It’s finishing,’ a source confirmed to MailOnline. 

As of the summer, the Daily Star will no longer dedicate a section of the newspaper’s page 3 to the likes of ‘bubbly’ Billie, 24, from Kent, whose windows ‘sparkle just like her’ nor ‘energetic’ Ellie, 23, from Hertfordshire.

Glamour models posing topless in newspapers has long been the subject of debate. 

The Sun newspaper axed Page 3 girls in 2015, while four years later, in 2019, the Daily Star announced the women would have their nipples covered. 

Now the Reach-owned company is pulling the plug completely.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow for the young women who still use Page 3 to launch their careers and make a living.

‘I am completely heart broken,’ model Isabella, 25, from Bristol, told fans alongside a half-naked picture of herself in the Daily Star tugging down her tiny crop top.

‘We don’t want to see the iconic girls gone forever, it’s part of British culture. I want to organise a protest!’

Another, Apollonia – known as Barbi – from Barnsley, who has posed for the newspaper for seven years, said: ‘What a ride it’s been… Full of confidence, challenges, laughter, and growth.’

It will not only mark the end of an era in British tabloid history, but also for the woman who has spent decades behind the camera photographing the girls for Page 3.

Jeany Savage was integral to launching the careers of Kelly Brook, Melinda Messenger and Katie Price.

She’s been described as a mother figure and guiding hand. She previously said of Katie: ‘She’s like the daughter I never had. 

‘She reminds me of myself when I was young – really ballsy and outgoing.’

Kelly Brook also once said of the snapper: ‘Without Jeany I wouldn’t be where I am today. She gave me the confidence to pose naturally.

‘Jeany was always a bundle of fun and treated me like a queen.’

So as the Daily Star Page 3 girls hang up their heels and lingerie for pastures new, FEMAIL looks back at what happened next to some of Britain’s most famous topless models….

JO GUEST 

She was a white van man favourite after bursting onto the scene in the 90s as a Page 3 girl in The Sun.

Born and raised in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, Jo Guest also stripped for Lads Mags Loaded and FHM among others – as well as starring in a Playboy video highlighting ‘British babes’.

And away from the camera, Jo dished out advice as the role of ‘agony babe’ in the Daily Star for two years from 1998.

But life changed dramatically when in 2007, Jo turned her back on the London party scene and gave up drinking to relocate to Bournemouth.

Despite her new healthy lifestyle, Jo began experiencing extreme bloating, swelling, nausea, muscle pain and tiredness to such an extent that she struggled to wash herself more than once a week.

She appeared on This Morning in 2008 where she described how the condition had derailed her life and impacted her appearance.

She told Phillip Schofield and Fern Britton: ‘At first, I thought it was just a virus, but it just wouldn’t stop. I was getting up, being sick all morning, and having to spend the afternoon in bed.’

After submitting herself to a battery of tests, Jo said her doctors could not pin down the root cause of her illness – despite the symptoms getting progressively worse.

Eventually, she was told she had fibromyalgia.

The illness wreaked havoc on her money-making looks, and she had to abandon plans to do a webcam show for an adult channel. 

At the time, it was reported she had debts of £15,000 and was forced to live on a paltry £65-a-week in benefits.

Speaking to the Daily Star, Jo revealed she had given up on trying to find a lasting relationship after the illness shattered her confidence.

‘Why would any man want to have sex with me now?’ she said.

‘I feel so unattractive, and I’ve got this horrible belly. I used to love wearing sexy clothes and short skirts, but I don’t enjoy dressing up anymore.

‘The spark has gone out of life. It’s hard to feel good about yourself or like a sexy woman when you feel so ill.’

Jo was treated with anti-depressants, and she returned to work on the Men & Motors YouTube channel.

So where is Jo Guest now? Aged 53, she has disappeared from the limelight with no known active public social media accounts.

It’s not believed Jo ever married or had children. 

The last photos she shared with fans are thought to be the ones she posted on an X account in 2009. The former model is seen beaming on her way to a photoshoot, while another shows her cuddling her beloved dog, Molly.

MELINDA MESSENGER 

Seventeen years before Kim Kardashian’s bare-bottom magazine cover ‘broke the internet’, petite blonde Melinda Messenger caused just as much of frenzy after posing in her underwear for an double glazing advert. 

The picture of Melinda, then 25, leaning on a table wearing just a white bra and matching pair of knickers turned her into an overnight sensation. 

Months earlier, she had splashed out £3,000 to surgically enhance her breasts from a 34C cup to DD. Her boyfriend Wayne tried to stop her – telling her it was a waste of money, while her mother, too, was horrified.

At the time, Melinda was earning £23,000-a-year as an office manager in Swindon and was doing free promotional work for a local modelling agency. Not, she insisted, because she wanted to model, but because ‘I’ll do anything to help anybody out’.

So when they called to say they needed someone to do an ad in a bra and pants for a double-glazing company. Melinda thought ‘Wow!’.

She agreed but changed her mind when she realised it might not look good at work. 

‘But,’ she said, ‘I was made to feel so guilty I went ahead. I didn’t feel embarrassed, it was just like wearing a bikini on the beach. Luckily I’m not at all self-conscious about my body.’ 

What happened next no one could have imagined.

The posters for Glevum Windows, with the slogan ‘class behind glass’, were put up at local bus stations, and stolen almost as quickly.

The advert was later banned by the Advertising Standards Authority for being too sexually suggestive.

But by then, ex-air stewardess Melinda was already one of the most famous women in Britain.

A Daily Star editor had seen the advert and invited Melinda to pose topless for them, before The Sun poached her as their ‘page three girl of the Thrillennium’.

‘The stereotype of glamour models is that they’re not very bright and it arises for a reason,’ Melinda previously said. 

‘It wasn’t a career I was looking for. I remember at the time I had to decide, Do I really want to be a glamour model?’

Melinda became instantly famous – a regular on the red carpet and on talk shows – with people fascinated by her transformation from anonymous small town girl to glamour sensation.

But her mother Avis was distraught at her daughter’s new career path and declared: ‘I brought her up to believe that women’s bodies were there to be respected, not prostituted to meet the perverted desires of men.’

The pair would be estranged for some time because of it. 

‘What has happened to me has been a fantastic, once-in-a-lifetime experience and I suppose that when something wonderful happens, something awful, like the problems with my mother, sometimes happen too.’ Melinda told the Daily Mail previously.

When The Sun declared its Page 3 would be a ‘Silicone-Free Zone’ it was more bad news for Melinda. 

But by then she had been commanding a reported £14,000 for a modelling assignment and even more for personal appearances. 

She turned her attention to TV work and was a presenter on the Channel 4 show, Eurotrash before hosting her own show called Live from Studio Five. 

In 1998, her and Wayne tied the knot in a glamorous ceremony in Bali.

She gave birth to their first child, Morgan, in 2000, later going on to have Flynn in 2002, and daughter, Evie in 2003. Melinda even won Quality Street Celebrity Mum of the Year in 2003.

But her marriage wasn’t to last and in 2008 the pair had a ‘trial separation’ before splitting for good in 2012.

Melinda found love again in survivalist Dr Raj Joshi while filming Celebrity SAS Who Dares Wins in 2022. They got engaged in 2023 but split six months later in 2024.

Meanwhile during her career, Melinda has appeared on shows like Celebrity Big Brother, Dancing on Ice, First Dates and Celebrity SAS Who Dares Wins

In 2015, she embarked on a remarkably different career path after deciding to retrain as a psychotherapist.

Now 54, Melinda is never far from the spotlight and recently insisted her daughter Evie, 21, is not a nepo baby. 

LINDA LUSARDI

There was a time when you couldn’t open a red-top newspaper without seeing Linda Lusardi striking a sexy pose. 

The model’s career began in 1976 when she was 18 and appeared on Page 3 of The Sun.

After leaving school, Linda, from Palmers Green, North London, worked as a clerk in a tax office. She did modelling jobs in her spare time before asking her agent if she could do it full-time.

Linda recalled: ‘He said, “you’ll never know while you are working as a full-time filing clerk”. Well, I gambled and quit my job as a tax officer on £35 a week and started modelling, earning £35 – an hour.’

And while her shopfitter father Nello was proud of her new career, the same couldn’t be said for her mother, Lilian.

‘My Mum was a tax officer, so she wasn’t too pleased when people came in the office and said: ‘ooh your daughter’s in the paper today.’ She was slightly embarrassed.

‘But my dad just thought it was great. If people didn’t know it was me, he’d tell them: ‘oh, she’s a Page Three girl,’ which sounds really weird these days that somebody would be proud of that, but things were so different then.

‘Page Three had just hit the heights. It was quite well thought of in the modelling world. I know it’s quite unbelievable now, but it was and it was quite hard to get onto those pages.’

Linda was an instant hit.

‘When I began modelling, the work just flowed in,’ she said.

‘Before then I’d been on a plane once and suddenly, I was going on ten or more trips a year to Spain, Portugal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, you name it.

‘It felt quite liberating at the time and I loved the pictures, I thought I looked really nice, my figure looked nice. I was earning lots of money, I was travelling all over the world.’ 

She added: ‘The modelling led to other things and before long I was being paid £50,000 for a panto season.’

Her biggest pay cheque would be for a Paxo stuffing TV advert, which earned her a cool £40,000.

Despite her successful career, Linda says she now ‘cringes’ at her modelling days and ‘believes it was wrong’.

‘The further I get from it and the more times are changing and attitudes are changing to all that sort of stuff, I suppose I find it slightly embarrassing,’ she said.

‘It wasn’t anything to be ashamed of in those days, but looking back now, with today’s eyes, it’s like everything in those days is shameful. The way men treated women was shameful.’

She continued: ‘Most of my jobs were on calendars which were on beaches. We’d have an absolute ball and I was in that bubble where everyone was doing the same work, so you didn’t feel looked down upon, although the public didn’t look down upon you in those days.

‘But now, looking back, I realise how wrong it was and how women shouldn’t be depicted like that and the language men used for women in those days was wrong.’

Linda also said how she now sympathised with former MP Clare Short, who fought to ban newspapers from publishing photographs of topless models in a Private Members Bill in the House of Commons in 1986.

At the time she was vilified for the campaign, but Linda said: ‘In retrospect I do have some sympathy for Clare Short, absolutely; she was just ahead of her time.’

Away from modelling, Linda made regular television appearances on shows including The Weakest Link, Blankety Blank and Wheel of Fortune.

She went on to have a successful acting career, with roles in Brookside, The Bill, Hollyoaks and Emmerdale.

She has also taken part in Dancing on Ice, Celebrity MasterChef and The Real Full Monty.

Now 66, Linda lives in Hertfordshire with her second husband, actor Sam Kane, and their two children, Lucy, 28, and Jack, 25, both singers. 

Last year, she had a non-surgical face lift after feeling ‘depressed’ about her ‘jowls’.

And on her birthday in September, Linda told fans: ‘Well, I can’t quite believe I turn 66 today and I am officially a pensioner. 

‘I don’t know where the time has gone. They do say time flies when you’re having fun so I must’ve had a brilliant time as it feels like only yesterday I was turning 25.’

RHIAN SUGDEN

Manchester-born Rhian Sugden was 19 when she ditched her job as a network administrator to try and give Katie Price a run for her money.

Rhian was snapped up by London modelling agency Samantha Bond and soon started appearing on Page 3 and in Nuts, Zoo and Maxim.

She had the full support of her family. 

Her mum Anita said at the time: ‘Rhian has a good figure and people are always saying she could be a model, so two months ago, she decided to give it a go. It’s all happened really quickly, but she’s very excited and we’re all so proud of her.

‘She hopes to become one of the top models in the country, and I am sure she will do that. The modelling agency has big plans for her. Everyone is convinced she will go far.’ 

Describing how she felt during her first topless photoshoot, Rhian told her local newspaper: ‘There was me, the photographer, a makeup artist and my boyfriend at the time in the room. It came quite naturally to be honest. Once I got my top off I was like, well I’m here now’.

At the time, Rhian was making a killing. ‘I have a comfortable life now,’ she said.

‘The price per shoot varies. I can’t really say specifically because all the girls are on different but I am on a good packet.

‘It’s not what I want to do forever. I eventually want to be a midwife. I never wanted to be a model, it just came about and I might as well do it while it lasts.’ 

In 2010, Rhian was the subject of a ‘sexting’ scandal with presenter Vernon Kay.

The model had exchanged flirtatious text messages with the married presenter over a four-month period, and later claimed that he ‘got away with it’ while her career was wrecked.

Vernon devastated his wife Tess Daly when details of his links with Rhian emerged. The model and the former All Star Family Fortunes host had met in a nightclub two years earlier.

‘It was awful,’ Rhian said.

‘My whole family… must have been so embarrassed. And he just got away with it.

‘It ruined everything for me. I feel like I was going up and up and up with my career and then when that came along I wish I’d never met him … And he just got to give an apology to his wife on the radio and that was it for him.’

In an interview for a Channel 4 documentary Page Three: The Naked Truth, she added: ‘There was an attraction there for both of us and I was a Page 3 girl and he was Vernon Kay, he’s a good-looking fella.

‘He came to Manchester and that was the first night we met and then things just stemmed from there. It was a lot of bravado on text, from him, probably when he’d had a drink.’

Vernon and Tess’s marriage survived after he apologised on his Radio 1 show. ‘I’ve let down my wife Tess. I’m an idiot. I’ve been stupid and daft but I’m not a sex pest,’ he told listeners.

Meanwhile, Rhian is now happily married to actor Oliver Mellor. Last year she gave birth to their miracle son George after a challenging five-year journey which involved eight rounds of IVF and £150,000.

She is a successful lingerie model and continues to share sexy snaps with fans.

Earlier this month, she shared photographs of herself in a sheer mesh bodysuit as she prepared to undergo a breast reduction.

Rhian recently revealed she wanted to get breast reduction surgery as her size F-cup bust make it ‘unbearable’ to walk.

‘One month to go until my breast uplift + reduction = one perkier, lighter, better version of me incoming!’ Rhian captioned the selfie. The countdown to the boob reboot is ON! @pallmallcosmetics.’

LUCY PINDER  

One Lads Mag once declared she had the ‘best breasts in the world’.

And it was only by chance Lucy Pinder was discovered as a model on Bournemouth beach in 2003 when she was 19.

The then-teenager from Winchester was approached as she sunbathed in a black bra and pictures of her were then printed in the Daily Star newspaper.

The secretary had been planning to go to the University of Winchester to study English literature and film when her modelling career took off – and she never looked back.

Talking about her assets in 2008, she said: ‘They’re 32FF. They used to be 32G but they’re going down a bit as I get older.’

‘They are 100 per cent real. They always generated a reaction. When I was at school, just 13, I’d cram them into these white school shirts.

‘Pupils and teachers just didn’t know where to look. Luckily I was calm about myself. I always felt quite comfortable being busty.’

Lucy went on to model for all the Lad Mags like Nuts and FHM, featuring in the latter ranking of 100 Sexiest Women in the World three times. 

Meanwhile, aged 24, she also appeared on the sixth series of Celebrity Big Brother in 2009 alongside Ulrika Jonsson, La Toya Jackson and Terry Christian but was the first person to be evicted.

Lucy’s mum, Jenny, defended her at the time and said: ‘There is a lot of prejudice. They are judging her purely on the job she does rather than the person she is.

‘People find it strange because she is not an exhibitionist. She is a genuinely nice girl. She is very much a Winchester girl.’

As well as modeling and TV work, Lucy went on to try her hand at acting

She made her film debut in the comedy horror Strippers vs Werewolves (2012), which was followed by supporting roles in several films.

She also hosted podcast Smashing Sundays with her flatmate and comedy writer, Beth Granville. 

And last year, the 41-year-old confirmed her romance with former Premier League boss Russell Martin.

A source said: ‘They’re a match made in heaven – or at least in Southampton. They’re mad for each other.’ 

Lucy largely stays out the limelight nowadays and occasionally updates fans with pictures of her travels.  

Meanwhile, referencing her Page 3 career and Channel 4 documentary, Page 3: The Naked Trust, she posted on her Instagram: ‘I have very mixed feelings about my page 3 career, some highs some lows, some regrets. 

‘I was asked but declined to be part of the show, wish I had now! This’ll be a trip down memory lane for sure.’

SUZANNE MIZZI

Maltese-born blonde Suzanne Mizzi was one of the biggest names in glamour modelling in the eighties and went on to become a catwalk model and the face of Vivienne Westwood. 

Tragically she died aged 43 in 2011 following a year-long battle with ovarian cancer.

The mother-of-two spent her final days at St Joseph’s Hospice in Hackney, East London.

Her husband and childhood sweetheart Frank Camilleri, whom she shared two children with, son Geo and daughter Sienna, told The Sun: ‘Suzanne was a beautiful person inside and out.

‘She was a Page 3 girl, model, celebrity, artist and interior designer. She had an amazing life. We were together for 30 years.’ 

Her close friend and fellow Page 3 girl Samantha Fox added: ‘We became great friends and stayed that way until the end. She was so bubbly and never took her lifestyle for granted.

‘She was a natural beauty and my favourite Page 3 girl. But she also had a big heart and was always there for me as a friend when I needed her through the years.’

She leapt to fame in 1984 when she made her glamour modelling debut at the age of 17.

At 5ft 4, she won a legion of male fans with her 34-24-34 figure, and within six months, her popularity rapidly grew and she posed for 26 calendars.

By 21, she signed a £400,000 contract to front her own lingerie range for high street chain Dorothy Perkins.

Mizzi managed to succeed where many Page 3 girls didn’t and made the crossover into catwalk modelling, quitting topless shoots in 1988.

In the early Nineties, she became the face of Vivienne Westwood and signed for top model agency Storm, and at the height of her fame, an insurance company insured her body for £11 million.

After turning her back on modelling, Mizzi attempted a singing career with the group Wildflowers.

Unfortunately her music career didn’t take off, and so she turned to one of her first loves – art.

As an artist and interior designer, Suzanne sold abstract paintings for up to £10,000.

KELLY BROOK 

Born Kelly Ann Parsons in Rochester, Kent in 1979 to Ken, a scaffolder, and Sandra, a pie shop worker, Kelly’s beauty singled her out for stardom from an early age.

Mother Sandra entered Kelly into a Miss Pears contest when she was just three. She didn’t win the competition to be a young brand ambassador, but went on to become Medway Carnival Princess when she was 13.

Bitten by the fame bug, she successfully auditioned for a place at the prestigious Italia Conti Stage School and left Thomas Aveling Secondary School for the institution which launched such household names as Naomi Campbell.

After three years at the school, aged just 16 but already armed with nine GCSEs, Kelly had to leave when her local council withdrew its grant and her parents could not meet the fees.

Without sufficient experience to pursue her dream to act, she instead used her physique to secure modelling work.

A local flooring company pictured her in a raunchy pose beside the slogan ‘The only way to get laid’ and the resulting furore brought her to the attention of the Daily Star newspaper photographer Jeany Savage.

Jeany arranged for a makeover, rechristened her charge with the catchier moniker Kelly Brook, and soon she was appearing in the red-top tabloids as a rival for Melinda Messenger.

And for a few heady months in 1998 Kelly’s modelling fame reached Melinda’s proportions. One paper even sent the teenager to entertain British troops.

She made a brief appearance in a Granada television documentary aptly named Babewatch and secured a presenting slot on the obscure Granada Men And Motors satellite channel. 

From there she was plucked to take over from Denise Van Outen and present The Big Breakfast alongside Johnny Vaughan, beating fierce competition from household names like Gail Porter and Caprice.

But it ended in disaster. 

Kelly herself admitted: ‘Something like that either makes you or breaks you. It gave me the motivation to prove myself and I have now moved on and done even better.’ 

Within weeks of quitting The Big Breakfast, she returned to what she knew best, making an arresting sight on billboards around the country as the face – and more important, the body – of Triumph’s Flaunt underwear range for fuller-figured women.

Shortly after that she disrobed to wide critical acclaim at Hammersmith’s Riverside Studios, playing a pole dancer in the play Eye Contact. Director Izzy Mant described her as ‘a very instinctive and natural actor’.

And Hollywood producers – who know better than most the value of the right look – certainly did take notice of the girl with Cindy Crawford’s hair, and Marilyn Monroe’s sex appeal.

She made appearances in various TV shows and films, including a brief role as Seth Green’s girlfriend in The Italian Job, which starred her then-boyfriend Jason Statham.

The couple met on holiday in the Greek resort of Santorini when Kelly was a little-known model.

Jason said at the time: ‘I was just bowled over. I thought she was the most amazing girl I had ever seen. She had an instant effect on me.’

Back in Britain they met again on Chris Evans’s TFI Friday show and were inseparable. Statham, a former market trader, model and international high-diver from South London, was by Kelly’s side during her lowest moments on The Big Breakfast.

This adversity – coupled with their shared working class backgrounds and unpretentious natures – helped cement their partnerships in the notoriously fickle world of showbusiness.

They went on to get engaged, but split in 2004.

Jason is now in a relationship with supermodel Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and they have two children together.

Kelly went on to be engaged a further three times and have many high-profile romances, including with rugby lothario Danny Cipriani, another rugby player Thom Evans and Gladiator competitor David Macintosh. 

She met her ex-fiance Billy Zane – who she dated for four years – in 2005 while filming an ill-fated erotic desert island thriller Three. Despite a West End premiere, the film was panned by critics and went straight to DVD in America.

In 2006, Kelly starred in an Agatha Christie’s Marple drama on ITV and in 2009 appeared as herself throughout the second series of ITV’s Moving Wallpaper.

Four years later in 2010, Kelly starred in horror film Piranha 3D, which grossed an admirable $83million worldwide.

Then, in 2012, Kelly played herself in Keith Lemon: The Film, which took £4million in the UK box office, despite being universally panned. In 2019, Kelly made the movie to radio when she joined Heart FM.

Last year, Kelly, now 45, and married to model Jeremy Parisi, revealed she had quit acting. 

She said: ‘I was a terrible actress.

‘I’m going to leave the acting thing. I don’t like being away from home for too long.

‘I’m such a big personality so I always find it quite a struggle to be somebody else. They’d tell me I was married to someone and after two weeks in my mind I believed I was married to them. It was a terrible situation.

‘I can’t imagine turning around to Jeremy and saying, ‘I’m off for six weeks and I’m going to pretend to be the lover of Ryan Reynolds, is that OK?’ 

‘I don’t think that would bode well.’

SAMANTHA FOX 

At 16, Samantha Fox was the youngest ever Page 3 model and had bodyguards to protect her from teenage boys at the peak of her fame.

She was invited to test shoot for The Sun and her first photo would be published under the headline ‘Sam, 16, Quits A-Levels for Ooh-Levels’. 

She became one of the most photographed women in Britain in the 80s, behind only Princess Diana and Margaret Thatcher. 

The model, from north London, won The Sun’s Page Three Girl of the Year award for three consecutive years between 1984 and 1986 and went on to pose nude for men’s magazines.

She retired from Page Three modelling at age 20 and launched a music career, releasing her hit song Touch Me (I Want Your Body), in 1986 which went to number one in 17 countries.

‘I helped give Page 3 a voice,’ she told The Guardian, adding: ‘I was the youngest-ever Page 3 girl and I did all kinds of things they weren’t supposed to do.’

She added: ‘I had bodyguards at the peak of my fame, mainly for the teenage boys desperate to see me. 

‘They’d push up against the shop doors before they’d opened and they’d be crushed up and going through the glass windows.’

Meanwhile, Sam announced she was a lesbian in 2003 after persistent rumours about her sexuality.

She had been terrified to talk about being gay over fears she would alienate male fans.

‘I spoke to my mum about it from a young age and she was really pleased that I’d found myself,’ Sam told Loose Women. 

‘When I told her she said, ‘Sam I thought so because at Christmas you always used to ask for football boots and play with Action Men instead of Sindys.'”

Sam would go on to marry her former manager Myra Stratton before she died of cancer in 2015 aged 60.

She found love again and in 2022, she married her tour manager Linda Olsen, from Norway.

However the 59-year-old appeared in court last year accused of assaulting her on a British Airways flight. Sam was later cleared after prosecutors dropped the charge.

Recently they celebrated Linda’s 50th birthday together. 

MICHELLE MARSH

Michelle Marsh regularly posed for Page 3 of tabloid newspapers, having shot to fame aged 18 after coming second in The Sun’s ‘National Cleavage Week’ contest in 2001 before going on to win Daily Star’s ‘Search for a Babe’ the following year.

She became a regular in the Lads Mags, including Playboy, Loaded, Maxim and Nuts, thanks to her curvaceous figure.

The model from Royton in Oldham, Greater Manchester, was often paired up with Lucy Pinder for racy shoots.

In 2006, she tried to launch a pop music career with her debut single ‘I Don’t Do’ – but it only reached 89 in the charts.

At the time, she said: ‘There are lots of other people who started out in topless modelling and who’ve then gone on to singing success, like Geri Halliwell and Madonna. I really would like to be more than just a glamour model.’ 

She went on to perform on The X Factor’s Battle of the Stars in 2008, and also featured on programmes including The Weakest Link, Celebrity Big Brother and Celebrity Four Weddings.

But the former glamour model largely stepped away from the limelight after marrying Scottish footballer Will Haining in 2007, and welcoming three children together. 

It was in 2010, while she was pregnant with her second child, she announced her retirement from the world of glamour modelling in a statement on her official website. 

Michelle, now 42, opened a children’s boutique store, TillyFlops, in Oldham, Manchester, in 2012.

Since then she has remained largely under-the-radar and frequently shares sweet family snaps. 

In 2022, she opened up on her 17-year-old daughter Maddison’s traumatic battle with a chronic nerve disease called complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), which leaves people in extreme discomfort that does not ease and which has no known cure. 

Speaking in an interview, she detailed her daughter’s pain which would lead her to ‘scream through the night’, with things so bad that the teen had begged to have her leg amputated.

LOUISE GLOVER 

Louise Glover, who was the first British model to feature on the cover of Playboy USA, recently revealed she is homeless and living in a tent.

At 20, the glamour model turned personal trainer claimed the title of Playboy’s Model of the Year and resided in Hugh Hefner’s multi-million pound Los Angeles mansion, where she mingled with Leonardo DiCaprio and Rihanna.

Now, aged 42, Louise’s living situation is worlds away from the days spent at the lavish estate – and she is currently residing in her car or £60 tent in Berkshire after being forced to give up her home six months ago due to the cost-of-living crisis.

Her fitness business hit a slump at a similar time that her landlord raised her £550-per-month flat in Windsor to a £750 monthly cost, resulting in her being unable to pay her bills.

Louise, whose modelling career once saw her earn hundreds per day, told The Sun that onlookers often tell her to ‘Go get a job’, but for the self-employed model, it’s not so simple.

She said: ‘I am applying for a lot of jobs and trying my best to find work. But it is so hard.’

In a bid to ‘not just survive, but live again’, Louise has launched a GoFundMe page with the hopes of raising £9,000 to move into a houseboat. At the time of writing, she had raised £3,370.

‘I’m fundraising to buy a modest, functional project boat I can live on – a dry, safe space with a roof over my head and a door I can lock. It doesn’t need to be fancy, just structurally sound and secure, with the potential to improve over time.’

Louise established herself as a glamour model aged 20 when she impressed Playboy bosses during a test shoot, with Hugh Hefner himself describing her as the ‘British Carmen Electra’.

In addition to making a living by posing in photoshoots, she secured a luxury home in the Playboy mansion and socialised with some of the world’s biggest stars.

However, things took a turn for Louise when she was 27 and contracted septicaemia – a bacterial infection in the bloodstream – and went into cardiac arrest following a breast implant surgery, leaving her hospitalised for five weeks.

‘I nearly died because I was so ill from the infection,’ she told The Sun, adding, ‘That was a wake-up call for me.’

The near-death experience led Louise to cut ties with her partying tendencies and move towards a health-conscious lifestyle by focusing on her fitness career and lifestyle modelling.

She secured a contract with Nike among other big brands and won multiple fitness titles, including Miami Pro Universe.

But her impressive background and list of achievements wasn’t enough to prevent Louise from falling victim to the cost-of-living crisis.

‘Renting rooms is now sky high and keeps going up and work has got less and less,’ she wrote on her GoFundMe.

Her UK business as a fitness instructor dried up at the same time her landlord pushed her rent up by £200 per month, ultimately resulting in the former glamour model becoming homeless last summer.

Louise continued, ‘For the past several months, I’ve been living out of my tent, sleeping in my car, and occasionally I get to dog sit, couch-surf at random people’s places which I (don’t like) or I’ll book the odd night in an Airbnb as a rest bite when its affordable.’

‘I’ve worked self-employed since 18, first as a professional model in my 20s, then in fitness on off with work as personal trainer, but found it seasonal and hardly any work so then I’ve tried for the past five years dog walker and pet sitter.

‘But it’s gone quieter each year with the rising cost of living and housing prices soaring, I lost my place to live, due to rent hiking up and work opportunities have become scarcer.

‘When I reached out to local homeless project, I was told I didn’t qualify for support. I don’t have children; I don’t claim benefits. I’ve lost both my parents, and I don’t have a partner to fall back on.’

Louise also told Loaded Magazine of the toll that being homeless has had on her health. ‘I’ve had migraines daily and anxiety attacks – it’s been brutal,’ she said, adding that she often survives on water and meal deals.

She added that, due to her glamorous appearance, people often make comments that she doesn’t appear homeless.

‘It’s not always what people think. You can be homeless and still look ‘normal’ or dress well. I get comments like ‘you don’t look homeless’ -but there are levels to it.

JODIE MARSH

Jodie Marsh found fame in the Noughties and whether it was her high profile slanging matches with other glamour models or her various reality TV stints, there wasn’t a day that would go by when Jodie’s face wasn’t splashed in the papers.

She famously had a nose job and boosted her bust to a 32GG.

‘I did have quite big boobs, natural big boobs – and as any woman with big boobs knows, they don’t stay pert and firm forever – they don’t,’ she said in 2008.

‘And of course, when gravity takes its toll, you’re left with boobs that really only look good in a push up bra – which is what mine had become.’

Now, she’s had a complete career overhaul, turning her back on fame to run an animal sanctuary in Great Dunmow, Essex – opening Fripps Farm Animal Sanctuary in 2020.

In the years between, Jodie admitted she’s made some dubious decisions when it comes to money.

As a child, Jodie was a pupil at the £10,000-a-year private Brentwood School and raised by her mother Kristina Marsh – who tragically died from cancer in 2020 – and her father John, who made their money from their scaffolding business.

‘We weren’t millionaires but we weren’t poor,’ Jodie explained. ‘My dad was homeless at 16 and he built up himself from scratch, he came from nothing.’

Jodie continued: ‘So I definitely didn’t grow up being used to money. We definitely had nice things when we were kids but I wouldn’t say we were spoiled.

‘We certainly knew the value of money and we never expected to just be given everything.’

Jodie also worked for her money in childhood, washing pots in restaurants from the age of 14.

Two years passed and she ended up working in a nightclub earning £150 a night looking after VIP clients and supervising the guest list.

‘I felt bloody rich!’ she joked about the sudden bump in wages.

Aged 17, Jodie decided to pursue a career in glamour modelling, and applied to a tabloid hoping they’d feature her.

‘They sent me a letter back rejecting me! Thank you, but no thanks,’ she revealed. ‘I was devastated because I’d been bullied at school. They’d all called me ugly for many years.

‘So in my head, I was like, I’ve got to be a model I’ve got to prove to my bullies that I’m not ugly.’

Yet the Daily Star gave Jodie a chance and she ended up becoming famous, with the paper who initially rejected her coming back and asking for her to feature.

‘So by then I was 23 and obviously, I’ve never gotten over the rejection and I negotiated my own deal with them… for one photograph, they paid me £30,000. The other girls were getting paid £50 a shoot.’

Later in life, Jodie started receiving help with her finances and revealed that she had someone step in to negotiate her fee for a high profile TV gig. 

‘I didn’t see the contract and I got paid £70,000 for that job. 14 years later I found out that I’d actually been paid £150,000 but I just never saw the money.

‘This was before everything was digital. There’s probably not even a record of it.’

Jodie also reflected on the financial struggles she faced when she retreated from the spotlight.

‘I was so fed up, I was getting trolled and people were just being nasty to me all the time, it was just horrible. So I sort of stepped out of the limelight but then it came a point where I couldn’t afford to even pay my mortgage.

‘I couldn’t pay any bills. I was completely skint. I was really in a mess, so I started to read The Secret [a self-help book] and I started doing a gratitude book.

‘I remember writing in the Gratitude book going I I want a brand new Audi Q7 and I remember laughing as I wrote it, because I thought, that’s ever gonna happen – I was on my a** and skint.

‘But two years later, I was champion of American bodybuilding. I smashed it and I walked into the showroom, ordered the brand new latest Q7 special edition with every extra on it, top of the range and I paid cash outright for it.

‘I cried the whole way driving it home because I was like, I can’t believe this has happened.’

During her glamour modelling days, Jodie also famously fell out with Katie Price – aka Jordan. 

The two former glamour models were rivals for years while they were both making a name for themselves as Page 3 girls. 

The pair also dated the same men on more than one occasion, with Katie accusing Jodie of ‘s*****g her leftovers’. 

Jodie previously said Katie ‘felt threatened’ by her, saying: ‘Before I came along, she was the only big name in glamour modelling.’

And Jodie wasn’t afraid to take pops at Katie in the press, once claiming in a 2009 interview with ZOO that Katie was not ‘good in bed’ and ‘doesn’t know what she’s doing’.

But in recent years the pair appeared to have turned over a new leaf as they both battle financial woes.

Jodie, who is currently tasked with paying the bills for Fripps Farm, revealed the monthly costs are £24,000, and noted that doesn’t include vet bills.

As well as relying on donations, Jodie returned to her glamour model roots to help fund the farm.

She launched an OnlyFans account and has earned thousands.

Jodie explained: ‘We needed to put perimeter fencing around the whole entire farm, and that cost £65,000. I funded that entire thing from my OnlyFans.’

Elsewhere, Jodie previously described herself as ‘fat’ because she no longer has time to work out while running her animal sanctuary.

She told The Sun: ‘You might recognise me as someone that used to be glamorous, sexy, a bodybuilder and everything else, but now I’m just a farm girl and I look a mess.’

Jodie added: ‘The reason I’m now fat and haven’t got a six pack is because I don’t have time to eat properly or even do the food shopping. Not ever.’

Last year the 46-year-old announced she’d split from her builder boyfriend Mark, three months after claiming he was her ‘first adult relationship after dating a string of con men’.

Before Mark, she was dating Elvis impersonator ex Billy Collins, who she discovered had been cheating on her with multiple women.

Jodie, who doesn’t have children, announced the news of her split from Billy in May 2022, claiming that she’d discovered revealing photos from other women on his phone.

KATIE PRICE 

She’s a name who needs no introduction. 

Brighton-born Kate Price launched her career as a Page 3 girl in 1996 as outspoken Jordan, determined to get fame and fortune. 

‘Even at school I was an exhibitionist, and told everyone I was going to be on TV,’ she told the Guardian in 2023.

‘I knew I wouldn’t have a normal job. I wanted a big house in the countryside, a fairytale wedding, to be a famous pop star or a model, and to work with horses. I’ve achieved it all – and more.’ 

Katie was born Katrina Amy Alexandra Alexis Infield. She took her stepfather’s surname, Price and chose the name Jordan for modelling as she thought it sounded catchier. 

Now, 46, Katie is famous for her many cosmetic surgeries, her various marriages, becoming a mother of five, and building a brand around her name.

Katie has starred on Celebrity Big Brother, numerous reality TV shows as well as I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here – where she met her ex-husband Peter Andre.

She is a jack of all trades; has written autobiographies, a series of novels, and even had a go at a singing career during which she competed to represent the UK in Eurovision.

In addition to her television jobs, Katie also launched a lingerie line, a haircare range at Superdrug, fragrance collections, and a equestrian clothing range. 

Despite her impressive CV, Katie has had her financial struggles, including being declared bankrupt.

‘The last six years have been hell – mentally and personally – everything has been hell,’ she said.

‘It’s such a nice feeling not to be bankrupt anymore. I’m in control of everything now. I realised that when you rely on people close to you that are supposed to be sorting out and they don’t, it puts you in s***.

‘So now I’ve learnt my lesson. It’s good that I’ve gone through it and come out of the other end. It’s such a good feeling and a great achievement.’

Katie has also had very public romance lows and highs. 

She is currently dating JJ Slater, 32.

NICOLA TAPPENDEN 

Like many Page 3 girls, Nicola began her modelling career young, posing in her first shoot for The Sun when she was 20.

The brunette beauty, now 42, became know as Nicola T and was extremely popular among readers, even going on to win the first ever Page 3 Idol competition in 2002. 

As she began to make waves in the modelling industry, she flaunted her good looks in pageants and beauty contests. In 2007, she was placed tenth in a competition for Miss Great Britain, representing Miss Croydon.

Expanding her repertoire yet again in 2010, eight years after gaining her etching on the wall of Page 3 fame, Nicola appeared on Celebrity Big Brother.

But her stint on the show was relatively brief, with Nicola being the sixth contestant to be booted off the show during a flash eviction.

The Surrey-born model continued to gravitate towards reality TV, going on to appear on 50 Greatest Plastic Surgery Shockers, Wags Boutique and Wife Swap. 

Realising life behind the camera wasn’t for her, Nicola has gone on to pursue an entirely different line of work, and now owns a successful tech company.

In 2008, Nicola welcomed her first child, a baby girl called Poppy, who she shares with midfield football player, Simon Walton. 

It was in the same year that she launched her now-defunct clothing brand, Delicious Couture.

She told Spoiled Brat at the time: ‘I had never had a great interest in fashion until I appeared on a ITV show called Wags boutique and I kind of fell into it, although like most girls I loved reading about fashion in magazines.’ 

Two years after the birth of her daughter, who is now 16, Nicola split from her fiancé, Simon in 2010, calling off the wedding and blaming the separation on the pair ‘growing apart’.

In 2012, the former glamour model began pursuing a relationship with Jeff Brazier, the former partner and father to the children of the late Jade Goody.

However the pair reportedly split in 2013 after ‘weeks’ of constant rows.

Nicola gave birth to a second child, a boy called Louis, in 2019. 

With her days of glamour modelling well behind her, Nicola now helms the tech company, Belle Digital, where she describes her role as ‘ecommerce business mentor and founding director.’

Her website reveals how she ‘set up the firm six years ago after 18 years working in e commerce.’ 

The firm assists in helping set up online stores and promises a ‘tailored package unique to each and every client.’ 

Keeping out the spotlight, Nicola keeps her Instagram account private. However, her description, which is public, reads ‘My kids are my world and everything else is a bonus.’ 

LEILANI DOWDING 

Leilani Dowding rose to fame when she entered Miss Great Britain aged 18, and won, in 1998. 

She had been waiting outside the Hippodrome in London for her boyfriend when one of the organisers of the contest approached her and told her she should enter. 

‘I had an opportunity thrown at me and I’ve been brought up to take every opportunity I get,’ she said at the time.

‘I definitely would have regretted it if I hadn’t done it.’

The following year she appeared on Page 3, earning even more fans as she rose up the ranks to make her name as a top glamour model before moving to LA to carve out a career there.

She went on to star in music videos and launched clothing line, Leiluna. After getting married she took a break from topless snaps.

Speaking in 2011 she said: ‘I have no problem doing topless. I mean in comparison to the other girls, and those with boob jobs, mine are tiny but they’re all mine and I’m proud of them. They’ve held up well. I still go topless on the beach. If the right magazine came along with the right price I’d probably even go naked but I’m not sure that’ll ever be on the cards.’

Leilani, now 45, briefly married restaurateur Richie Palmer, the ex husband of Raquel Welch.

In 2020 she announced her engagement to The Cult rocker Billy Duffy, 64, and joined The Real Housewives of Cheshire for one series.

Before joining the cast, she said: ‘After 15 years of living in LA, my partner Billy Duffy and I decided to move back to the UK.

‘We’ve decided to make Cheshire our home and we’re so excited to be back. When the opportunity arose to join The Real Housewives of Cheshire, I thought it would be so much fun, I jumped at the chance.’

A source added: ‘Everyone is so excited to have her join the show. She pulls no punches and will be a hit with men and women viewers.’

They added that Leilani’s fame was set to ‘rocket’ with her addition to the cast, with hopes viewing figures could go over the one million mark.

Around the same time, she told MailOnline how she didn’t want children. 

However, the former glamour model left the Cheshire-based show after just one season. 

She believes she wasn’t asked back on the series due to her ‘outspoken’ views, the Mirror reported.

Leilani’s opinions landed her media attention in 2023, when she claimed it’s double standards to praise Sam Smith for stripping off in a racy music video after there was mass outrage at Formula One models for wearing sexy outfits.

In a string of tweets, she said she ‘absolutely loved’ her time working as a model on the circuit until ‘angry women’ forced grid girls to be banned from the sport.

Leilani questioned why Sam’s 2023 video for single I’m Not Here To Make Friends hadn’t sparked the same outrage that grid girls did.

Grid girls were axed from Formula One in 2018, with bosses saying that they were not in keeping with their ‘brand values’.

The move mirrored the Professional Darts Corporation’s decision to end the practice of glamorous women escorting male players to the stage.

In her tweet, Leilani wrote: ‘I remember all those angry women who are sure to ban grid girls and podium girls. 

‘Where are their voices now when kids can watch graphic hardcore at a touch of a button, and pop stars wriggle around in simulated golden showers.’

Leilani ended her tweet: ‘Me on left doing what’s now banned’ and shared a snap of herself as a grid girl in 2002 alongside a grab of Sam in the music video.