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Tthis was the time in the mid-2000s when it felt like “everyone” had seen her without a top, says Keeley Hazell. Page 3 was a major part of the tabloid pressThe boy magician was becoming famous and was one of the most famous people in the country. “There was joy, but also embarrassment and shame,” the soft-spoken Hazell recalls. “Topless modeling didn’t suit me as a person.”
Hazell, who was born in Lewisham, London, quit modeling in her 20s and moved to LA to become an actress. But the impact of his time on the job stayed with him, and inspired his 2025 book. Everyone Has Seen My Breasts: Stories and Insights from Unexpected Women. He describes the writing process as “freeing” when we meet in London, where he has been planning an Edinburgh fringe theatre/comedy show based on the book. “I was able to answer,” he says, “when I was at a loss for words”.
The show makes him think of “a Russian puppet – I’m acting like me, but I’m also acting like me”. The idea of having a lot of information is not new to him. He remembers “giving a different look” to the Keeley Hazell people he saw on the pages of magazines, “in old clothes and very ugly”. So much so that he was rarely recognized on the street, even at the height of his fame. When asked if he was an artist, he would say no. “I’m like, ‘Are you saying I look like a model?’ And it was a really fun experiment because a lot of times they’re like, ‘No, no, you’re better than that.’ It was strange because they were talking about me but I also felt that I was different from them.”
Hazell’s introduction to the visual arts was swift and unexpected. At the age of 16, she dropped out of school and started working in a hairdressing salon, where a friend encouraged her to apply for a job as a model. She took photos and sent them to “addresses” assigned to her – one of which, unbeknownst to Hazell, was the Daily Star’s “Beach babe” contest. She won, and a few months later she entered Sun’s “Page 3 idol” contest. “I won again, and this was the beginning of my career.”
Painting was very different from his life at home in the council house. From the time I grew up there I had a luxury house overlooking the Thames.” Hazell was a “canvas”, and he knew that he could be made to fit the artist’s image. “I was very young, there was a lot of abuse, I was not mentally or emotionally prepared.” Protection, he says, was basically non-existent. “The women who entered the factories had very little protection.
Looking back, Hazell couldn’t believe it was real. “It was difficult growing up … the images were readily available in newspapers and magazines.” There are times when he thinks of those days fondly; He earns more than he thought and starts traveling around the world. But he regrets “not being able to control” things. “Most of the time I felt numb.
Today, he offers carefully considered answers, with the air of someone who has had the time and space to work it all out. The therapy has helped a lot, he tells me, especially when it comes to dealing with the sex tape that was sold to Sunday Sport. It was “terrifying” to write about what happened and “in another way” says Hazell. “Most women face some form of rape and abuse in every environment, a shame that I had to get rid of.”
The Edinburgh fringe show is the latest headline in this trend. It begins in 2019 with her audition to play Keeley Jones, a character inspired by her, in Ted Lasso. She has not yet cast the role but has made recurring appearances on the series and works as a recruiter. Hazell wouldn’t tell me much about the design of the show itself – it’s still in the writing process. “Right now I’m just looking at the laptop, ordering food and thinking, this is difficult,” he says with a laugh. But he’s sure it’ll be funny. “Horror and comedy come together… And it feels free to be, finally, independent of the people Keeley Hazell sees and hears. “It’s so powerful to have a voice.”
