‘Kelly Brook is my pin-up persona – this is the real me’-Ruth Lawes-Entertainment – Metro

Kelly Brook isn’t even her real name (Picture: Christie Goodwin/WireImage)

On Celebrity Race Across The World, Kelly Brook, by her own admission, is not Kelly Brook at all.

For Kelly Brook – the Page Three model who became an actress in films like Piranha 3D and The Italian Job before finding her calling as a radio presenter – is nothing but an ‘illusion.’

The 44-year-old explained to Metro.co.uk that Kelly Brook was a ‘pin-up character’ dreamt up by a photographer when she was 18 because her real name, Kelly Parsons, lacked ‘glamour’.

While Kelly said she has since ‘grown into’ the Kelly Brook ‘persona’ as she has become older and more confident, she is ‘stripped away’ on the BBC show where she backpacks across South America with husband Jeremy Parisi, 39.

The former Strictly Come Dancing star said: ‘You’re dealing with stuff Kelly Brook doesn’t deal with: Kelly Brook gets a car. Kelly Brook has a glam team. Kelly Brook has dinner bought for her.

‘On Celebrity Race Across The World, Mrs Parisi didn’t have a phone; didn’t have any money; had to get the bus everywhere, and didn’t have a glam team.’

Kelly said Kelly Brook was a ‘persona’ created on a photoshoot (Picture: Getty Images)

She said Kelly Brook is ‘stripped away’ on Celebrity Race Across The World (Picture: BBC)

Kelly added: ‘But I’m not even sure if the person you get on the show exists outside of that scenario. We all have different faces and different situations bring those out.’

On Celebrity Race Across The World, Kelly and Jeremy are competing against fellow star pairings Scott Mills and his husband Sam Vaughan, Jeff Brazier and his son Freddy Brazier, and Kola Bokinni and his cousin Mary Ellen on a 12,500km race of a lifetime.

They must travel from Belem, Brazil to Frutillar, Chile with limited resources and no internet in the quickest time possible, relying on jobs to boost their budget and the kindness of strangers for navigation.

The trip may have uncloaked Kelly but it revealed a new ‘side’ of her husband Jeremy, a professional martial arts fighter. The couple started dating nearly a decade ago and married in 2022.

Kelly is travelling across South America with her husband Jeremy(Picture: BBC)

Kelly said Kelly Brook was a ‘pin-up persona’ but she had embraced it more in recent years (Picture: Redferns)

‘He had this judo mentality,’ Kelly said. ‘He went into this competitive mode and I’d never seen that side to him before – whereas I thought I was on holiday mode.’

The Celeb Bake Off star said Jeremy’s competitive nature meant he would ‘get very quiet and refuse to eat’ to save cash over concerns the other couples were edging ahead.

‘He would go on hunger strike to not spend money,’ Kelly recalled – a real strength of willpower when she said Brazilian bus drivers would stop frequently for barbeque.

‘You cannot not say no to the rotisserie chicken,’ she laughed. ‘But Jeremy did. He would sit there with an espresso, just glaring at me, and I’d have a plate of beans and rice, the most amazing steak you’ve ever seen, and a jug of red wine. I loved it.’

Kelly said she met another ‘side’ of her husband on the BBC show (Picture: Instagram)

Kelly joked she didn’t have a glam team on Celebrity Race Across The World (Picture: Justin GoffUK Press via Getty Images)

Food aside, was there any tension? ‘I just had one person on my side and that was Kelly,’ Jeremy told Metro.co.uk. ‘In five weeks, you will have moments of tension but it was not towards Kelly, it was just the situation.’

Kelly added: ‘He’s my best friend.’

But the show wasn’t just a relentless endurance test of trying to stay sane on long bus journeys and rationed portions of food, it had an unexpected benefit for Kelly, too.

It helped the broadcaster overcome a ‘horrific’ experience that left her too ‘traumatised’ to travel on the tube and domestic trains.

Kelly described her husband as her ‘best friend’ (Picture: Getty Images Europe)

Kelly recalled: ‘I was traveling to Manchester and someone threw themselves in front of the train and it stopped.

‘I had an absolute panic attack because I was trapped on a train while they were dealing with this horrific thing.

‘Ever since then, I’ve been too traumatised to get on public transport. I use the Euro Star and fly on commercial planes but just getting a train to work – I haven’t done that since the incident.

‘On the show, I did wonder how I was going to be, but actually, there was no choice: we were on busses the whole time.

‘Since I’ve got back, I’ve tackled the tube a few times – and it’s actually been alright.’

Celebrity Race Across The World starts tonight at 9pm on BBC One and iPlayer.

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