The likes of FHM, Zoo, Nuts, and Loaded were once the go-to for lads looking for an eyeful of their favourite glamour models. But what happened to the babes once the lads’ mag industry went bust?
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Leilani Dowding went on to star on The Real Housewives of Cheshire
In the present day, people often slide into the DMs of attractive Instagram models for a bit of fun. However, back in the early 2000s, if you fancied a quick peek, you had to physically go to the shop and purchase a magazine.
FHM, Loaded, Nuts and Zoo were the popular choices, featuring a plethora of busty beauties that graced the bedroom walls of lads nationwide.
But as the decade came to an end, due to the rise of the internet and shifting attitudes towards glamour models, the lads’ mag industry found itself struggling, leaving its pin-ups searching for a new path. Some fared better than others, reports the Daily Star.
From homelessness and illness to heartbreak and unexpected Hollywood careers, here’s what happened next for the lads’ mag babes….
Gail Porter
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Gail was a TV presenter before turning to glamour modelling(Image: DS)
Gail initially made her name hosting Fully Booked and Top of the Pops, but soon expanded her career to become a favourite of the lads’ mags, discussing orgasms and even having her naked rear projected onto the Houses of Parliament to promote FHM magazine’s 100 sexiest women poll in 1999.
The Scottish star tied the knot with Toploader guitarist Dan Hipgrave in 2001 and welcomed daughter Honey a year later.
Despite appearances, she was privately living with post-natal depression and when her marriage ended in 2005, she was hit with alopecia and lost all her hair.
“It was absolutely terrifying, I didn’t know what was going on,” she later 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, now 54, faced the darkest time of her life when she declared bankruptcy and found herself without a home, resorting to sleeping on a park bench in Hampstead Heath.
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Gail lost her hair and was diagnosed with alopecia (Image: Getty Images)
“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 shared with The Sun.
She attributed her financial downfall to her hair loss.
“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.”
Keeley Hazell
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Keeley won the daily Star’s Search for a Beach Babe contest(Image: Tim Merry)
Hailing from Lewisham, London, and born to a dinner lady mum and window-fitter dad, Keeley’s rise to stardom began when she clinched victory in the Daily Star’s Search for a Beach Babe contest at the age of 17.
With candid remarks such as: “If I’m swimming in a pool and my bikini pops off, I’m not bothered – I’ll just carry on,” she quickly became a favourite, landing gigs with Loaded, Nuts, Zoo, and FHM, which playfully described her as a Kentish melon farmer.
Living out her wildest dreams at the peak of her career, she reminisced: “I was travelling all the time, and financially my situation changed a lot. I was earning a lot of money. At the time you don’t realise and I look back and think ‘that was crazy.’”
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Keeley Hazell recently starred on Ted Lasso
Now 38, Keeley once topped the list as the glamour model with more sultry snaps than anyone else in her heyday but hung up her bikini in 2009 when her earnings plummeted from £30,000 a shoot to a meagre £1,000 due to dipping magazine sales.
Shrewdly, she turned her financial tide by investing 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 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 programme’s finale and even co-writing an episode.
Keeley was reunited with her Horrible Bosses co-star, Jason, 49, as he played Ted, and the two dated from 2021 to 2022.
On Keeley’s Instagram, her bio pokes fun at her old career, reading: ‘Livin’ my breast life’, but notes her current occupation as ‘writer’. Her debut memoir, Everyone’s Seen My T**s, will be released on July 15, 2025.
Leilani Dowding
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Leilani Dowling was Miss Great Britain(Image: Getty Images)
Leilani Dowding didn’t just rely on her looks; the brainy beauty studied economics at the University of London and claimed the title of Miss Great Britain before becoming the toast of the lad mags.
Yet she left it all behind 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 difference, ultimately leading 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 defended her integrity, saying: “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.”
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Leilani Dowding starred on The Real Housewives of Cheshire(Image: Monkey Kingdom/ITV)
Tackling assumptions head-on, she said: “Because he is a lot older, people assume that yes, I was a gold digger. My ex husband was amazing and such a gentlemen.
“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, 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 ITVBe programme.
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Leilani won’t be returning to RHOC(Image: Leilani Dowling/Instagram)
But six years after her exit, the show hit its tenth anniversary with many original stars including Tanya Bardsley, Leanne Brown, Dawn Ward and Magali Gorre making their return to the show. They have been joined by Hanna Kinsella, Ester Dee and Nermina Pieters-Mekic.
However, Leilani, who found fame as a glamour model, later took to social media to reveal she wasn’t asked back for the tenth anniversary. The star, who is engaged to The Cult’s Billy Duffy believes it’s down to her often controversial comments on social media.
Sharing a video on social media, Leilani said: “A few of my friends and some people I don’t know who follow me or the show have asked if I’ll be going back on The Real Housewives of Cheshire as it’s the tenth anniversary and they’re bringing back a lot of the previous cast members. But no, I haven’t been asked.
“It’s possible because I’ve been very outspoken about political and social things that no-one on mainstream TV should ever talk about. Also, I think it’s more likely because there would be no storyline for me. I live south of Cheshire now, just a little bit, south of the border. I haven’t spoken to or hung out with any of the women since I left the show.”
Abi Titmuss
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Abi’s now a mum of one (Image: GETTY )
Abi Titmuss first became a tabloid fixation when she stood by then-beau John Leslie during his infamous 2003 sexual assault case collapse.
The former nurse changed jobs and became a reporter for Richard and Judy. But her new career was derailed in 2004 when a sex tape featuring herself, John and model Aisha Abubakar was leaked, leading to her dismissal from the show.
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Abi is married to actor Ari Welkom.
However, Abi left modelling 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 glamour modelling past.
She and Ari tied the knot in May 2017 amidst the joy of pregnancy, while she was 21 weeks along 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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Kelly Brook posed in London in 2000 (Image: Redferns)
With an envious figure, it’s no shocker that she was once crowned FHM’s Sexiest Woman in the World.
Having burst onto the glamour scene in 1997, Kelly Brook quickly 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 45, Kelly had a disastrous stint presenting the Big Breakfast in 1999 before she quit after just a matter of months, amid claims she stumbled over the pronunciation of big words.
You can’t keep a good girl down though and Kelly bounced back, hosting Celebrity Love Island and getting engaged to Hollywood actor Billy Zane. But their engagement came to an end, eventually parting ways in 2008.
Her private life faced further heartache when, in 2011, Kelly experienced devastating loss – a miscarriage five months into her pregnancy with then-boyfriend, rugby ace Thom Evans, followed by yet another later that year.
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Kelly’s been on a weight loss journey(Image: Love Productions)
Their relationship couldn’t weather the storm, with Thom relocating to Los Angeles for his modelling career soon after and making it clear he saw no future in taking their commitment any further. “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 husband Jeremy, and hosted the drive time show on Heart London.
Kelly had undergone a health transformation in the last few years, dropping two stone and four dress sizes. She’s a proud ambassador for SlimFast and credited the plan for her impressive weight management milestone, having trimmed down from a size 16 to a size 12.
Reflecting on her past battles with weight fluctuation during the 2010s, she told the Mirror: “I wasn’t feeling happy in my body. I wanted to lose weight, and now I’ve lost it. I’m maintaining it and feel really good.”
