With husband Jeremy Parisi, Kelly Brook and her husband, Jeremy, are living in London together and have two children. In order to live a life without regrets, Kelly Brook must first accept her decision to stop having children. The presenter, who turned 45 in November, is back in North London after selling up and leaving the 15th-century Kent country house she bought in her twenties.
Kelly has a distinct sense of contentment about her now that she’s settled (but still incredibly busy working six days a week on Heart Radio). She reveals that some very touching words from a member of her family contributed to this. “When I asked my grandma if she regretted anything in life, because that’s what you ask octogenarians, she said — very honestly — that her biggest regret was having children”, she says when she sits down for an exclusive chat with Mirror’s Notebook magazine.
“I wasn’t expecting it, but she definitely said it! She believed that having children was a significant portion of her life. I thought, ‘ What an absolutely honest, incredible answer, ‘ and I think I needed to hear it. I was about 36 at the time and thinking, ‘ God, am I ever going to have children? If so, maybe I should just get on with it now? ‘ Then I thought, ‘ Actually, I don’t think I want them, ‘ and hearing that somebody had regrets, and that I might not regret not having children, made me feel really happy about my choice”.
Her grandma’s honesty, she says, almost gave her permission to accept that being a woman without children doesn’t mean a life full of regret — in fact, it can mean the opposite. “You can change most things in life, can’t you? You can change where you live, you can change your relationships, you can get divorced, you can move on, things can change a lot. What doesn’t change is having children, because that’s the one constant thing — once you have children, you can’t change that.
” Once you’re a mother, you’re a mother for life. I’m a dog mum, but I’m going to be a dog mum for 15 years, so it’s not the same. As someone who’s probably not going to have children, it’s hard to think about regrets now, because what am I going to regret? that I moved to the UK after selling my LA home? Well, there’s nothing stopping me from moving back to LA. If I regret something, I’ll just go back and change it! “
Kelly has been a breath of fresh air as well as a voice of reason for many women over her nearly 30-year career as a model, presenter, and actress. She has always been open and honest about her body and the work she has done to keep her curves healthy. Since 2018, she’s also been an ambassador for SlimFast and, to this day, still uses its shakes and snacks to help her stay” on track”.
” I’m not trying to be anything other than I am, “she tells us”. I’ve never been that way because I’m very outward-looking and not really care that much about how I look every day. I love my garden, I love going out walking, I’m not forever taking selfies and looking in the mirror, or out shopping for clothes. However, I am aware that I must be healthy and fit in order to function and carry out my duties.
Even though she was working hard in her Kent home and garden, she eventually slipped from a size 12 to a size 16, which is when she first introduced SlimFast to her routine after returning to the UK after living in Los Angeles. Any extra weight lands on her boobs, she says, which is the last thing she needs as she trains for this year’s London Marathon.
“I had to wear these incredible sports bras and lubricate everything so there’s no chafing when I went for a 6km run yesterday.” “she grins”. So I’m just not comfortable being heavier, I’m too much of an active person. Your metabolism slows down, and hormones and advancing age mean you need to be a little more aware of what you eat and how you live.
Kelly claims that the restored medieval farmhouse, where she had lived up until recently, was where she had lived a “relatively reclusive” life. However, when she realized she no longer needed it when she met her now-husband, Jeremy, in 2014, she realized when she was still living in LA.
A safe haven, far from the demands and sporadic chaos of her life as a model, was provided by the enormous garden that Kelly lovingly cultivated herself with the aid of the odd man and an industrial lawn mower. Gardening became her way of healing from trauma, she says.
I would just go out and prune the rosebushes, plant some vegetable beds, or sprinkle some wildflower seeds when I was experiencing stress or, you know, if I was going through a relationship break-up or people would criticize me.
“Every aspect of that garden is probably connected to some trauma in my life,” I said. Do you know what? I asked myself when I went out to buy lots of water lilies. Because it was such a s**t day, and somehow I managed it, today would be a great day to make my pond look like Giverny [the home of artist Claude Monet].
” That’s how I would process things and deal with things, it was so healing. But when I met my husband, he became my sanctuary, along with my dog, and I’d never had that before. “
Kelly and Jeremy, 39, started dating in 2015 and, after returning home, she once again sought solace in her timber-framed Wealden farmhouse, which she’d lovingly — and expensively — restored herself. But now that Jeremy is with her, she realized it was time to reintegrate herself into the hustle and bustle of London, despite her love of rural life.
We were excited to move to London, I was excited to work on the radio, and I wanted to just be a little more connected to people. When I first moved in, I initially assumed that Coronation Street was where I lived because people would suddenly knock on my door and take me for a dog walk. “Being around people was really refreshing as opposed to just wandering around without seeing a soul!” For many years, I lived a little like a recluse.
Highlighting just how much that chapter was closing, Kelly didn’t just sell the home, she sold everything in it, too. The knock-on effect, she tells us, is a rather sparse and mismatched collection of furniture in their new home. But it has a garden, so she’s happy. “We have nothing now”, she says, laughing. “Well, we have bits and pieces but nothing matches. I’ve got three chairs around the table, not even four or six. Everything is jumbled. We are undoubtedly beginning a new chapter, and we are attempting to define what that means.
” But in terms of the garden, I have actually done some work. We’ve just thrown down loads of spring bulbs, so that will be really colourful, and we’ve got some lovely camellias. I want it to have a bit of a Cotswolds, modern-country vibe, so we’ve got some bay trees, some lavender and lots of lovely roses, which hadn’t been pruned so I’ve cut them back very hard and I’m not sure if I’ve done it too much, but we’ll see! “
The model and his wife Kelly’s appearance on Celebrity Race Across the World last summer helped the public get to know Italian model Jeremy a little bit. In a three-part miniseries Kelly and Jeremy: La Vita Italiana, which was shot on Jeremy’s family farm in Southern Italy, the couple also gave an insight into their relationship in November.
While looking into a possible relocation to Arpino, where they got married in 2022, the pair found a routine on the olive farm, picking up the olives from the 7, 000-odd trees, and feeding the chickens. While a move isn’t on the cards for now, Kelly says she’d love to explore introducing the family’s produce to the UK market, and wouldn’t rule out them tackling a bigger project over there such as a house renovation.
” We do love the lifestyle, and the food and the people, so we’d love to spend more time there. And it was lovely to introduce Jeremy to the British audience on the program because few people are familiar with him. I’m not sure we’d be able to pull off an Italian version of Clarkson’s Farm, but maybe renovating one of the farm buildings, that could be quite a fun TV opportunity. “
Kelly Brook is a SlimFast ambassador. To find out more information, visit slimfast. follow @slimfastuk and #TastyTastyGood on social media or visit www.co.uk/.
