Kelly Brook is taking part in the 25th series of I’m A CelebrityCredit: Shutterstock Editorial

I’ve spent more than a decade listening to Kelly Brook share her highs, lows, heartbreaks and triumphs — which is why I know exactly how she feels about her body, her career, and the storm of comments she’ll face when she walks out of the I’m A Celebrity jungle.

Kelly has appeared on the Fabulous Magazine cover multiple timesCredit: MARK HAYMAN / FABULOUS MAGAZINE
Kelly Allen with namesake Kelly BrookCredit: Supplied
Kelly Brook in a red bikini on a boat. 8 Kelly in 2010 for Piranha 3DCredit: Alamy
Kelly Brook and Jason Statham during 2004 MTV Movie Awards. 8 Kelly and ex Jason Statham at the 2004 MTV Movie AwardsCredit: Getty
Kelly Brook on the red carpet at the “Snatch” premiere. 8 Kelly in her iconic pink dress at the ‘Snatch’ Premiere in August 2000Credit: Rex

Kelly and I have talked about everything: the chaos of her love life, the rollercoaster of her showbiz journey, and the way she sees herself physically. And it’s that last part — her quietly held truth about her “normal” body — that explains why she will never chase being super-thin again.
And to understand that, you have to remember who she used to be: one of Britain’s most celebrated beauty icons. In her twenties, Kelly wasn’t just famous — she was adored. With extraordinary proportions, luminous skin and a face everyone recognised, she was the woman magazines couldn’t get enough of. Men gravitated toward her, opportunities came easily, and even strangers projected fantasies onto her. But those years also taught her one brutal lesson: many people came into her life for her looks, not for her.

Growing up in the ’90s, Kelly was the girl everyone watched on The Big Breakfast. She was barely out of her teens and yet already a TV icon, glowing with youth and naturally tiny. I was just a couple of years younger, staring at her on screen thinking: how can someone be that beautiful?

Fast forward twenty years, and I’m sitting beside her in showbiz meetings, photoshoots, award shows, and events — discovering the real woman behind the image.

The start of a friendship

I met Kelly back in 2009 at the GQ Awards, buzzing with excitement about her dream of cracking Hollywood. She told me she planned to embrace LA sunshine, hike the Hills, and fall in love with green juices and workouts.

She was funny, warm and refreshingly down-to-earth — the kind of person who could make a whole room laugh without trying.

But life in LA didn’t unfold the way she hoped, and soon she was back in the UK, throwing herself into work with her trademark humour. At the 2019 BRIT Awards, she giggled to me, “Twenty years since my first BRITs! How am I still getting in? Think we can last another twenty?”

That’s Kelly — always joking, always grounded.

She’s appeared on Fabulous magazine covers multiple times, and at every shoot she gives everything: charm, professionalism, jokes with the crew, and complete commitment even when the day is sweltering.

The jungle challenge

So when she entered the I’m A Celeb jungle, I knew she’d be TV gold. Within minutes of her first Bushtucker Trial she was already cracking jokes about bugs “biting her t*ts”.

But I also knew what was coming next: the trolls.

The minute she strips off for the iconic jungle shower — the “Myleene moment” every woman on the show is measured against — the internet will explode with criticism about her weight.
And yet Kelly genuinely doesn’t care.

“We’re both curvy girls,” she’s told me many times. “I’ve hated my body and loved my body. But being skinny never made me happy.”

Kelly has spoken openly about the cruel period after her dad died in 2007, when grief sent her tumbling to 8½ stone.
“Some of the skinniest times in my life have been my most miserable,” she told Fabulous. “I never want to be that small again.”
What she rarely says out loud is that her heartbreaks — relationships that arrived passionately and disappeared just as fast — played a huge role. The thinner she got, the more broken she was. It became a pattern she could finally recognise in hindsight.

The truth about Kelly’s “normal” body

Her body has been a talking point her whole life — but now, at 45, she’s a size 12, smaller than the UK average, and she’s finally at peace with herself.

Kelly built her whole early career on youthful glamour: bikini shoots, film roles, Hollywood auditions, and all the things that come with being a 20-year-old pin-up.
But she says it bluntly:
“I didn’t have to work for that body. I just had it.”

And because she had been adored so intensely for her beauty, she eventually realised something painful: once youth fades, so do the people who were only there for the surface.
It was one of the reasons she stopped pushing herself to maintain the impossible — she didn’t want to live in a gym just to please those who valued her for the wrong things.

She knows those days are gone — and she’s genuinely fine with that.

Much of her newfound confidence comes from husband Jeremy Parisi, who has helped her build a healthier relationship with food and self-love.
“He eats all the time!” she told me. “He loves pasta. Breakfast, lunch, dinner — he’d eat it every day. He made me sit down for meals, and it changed everything.”

Before Jeremy, she admits she barely ate properly.
Now, she maintains a weight she genuinely loves and vows never to go back to unhealthy extremes.

“Being thinner doesn’t mean being happier,” she said. “You need to remember that.”

Taking ownership of who she is now

Of course, she still looks back at old photos — who wouldn’t?
One of her favourites is the unforgettable pink Julien MacDonald dress she wore at the Snatch premiere in 2000 alongside then-boyfriend Jason Statham.

“I don’t have the dress anymore,” she laughed. “Julien kept it. Honestly, I don’t think I’d get one leg in it now.”

Her stylist back then insisted she wear it, saying:
“You’ll look back in 20 years and thank yourself.”
And Kelly says, “It’s true!”

Kelly knows her body looks different — but she also knows she still turns heads, still makes people swoon, and still brings her signature sparkle everywhere she goes.

Most importantly: she’s happy.
Happy not to chase the impossible. Happy to live comfortably as a middle-aged woman. Happy beside a man who loves her soul, not her measurements.

And perhaps that’s why the trolls barely scratch the surface anymore.
Kelly isn’t chasing the past — she’s living fully in her present.