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Jodie Marsh
Birthdate:	23 December 1978 (1978-12-23) (age 29)
Birth location:	Brentwood, Essex, England
Birth name:	Jodie Marsh
Height:	5 ft. 2 in.
Eye colour:	Brown
Hair colour:	Naturally dark brown (generally dyed blonde)
Ethnicity:	Caucasian
Official web site
Jodie Marsh at IMDb

Jodie Louisa Marsh (born 23 December 1978) is an English glamour model and television personality. She has appeared topless in many tabloid newspapers and has appeared on her own reality TV show, Totally Jodie Marsh.

Early life

Marsh was born in Brentwood, Essex, England to a middle-class family. Her father, John Marsh, ran his own scaffolding business. She has one younger brother, Jordan. Marsh's nose was disfigured as the result of a childhood hockey accident. According to Marsh, this made her the target of bullying during her schooling at Brentwood School, which caused her to consider suicide.¹

Her big break came in January 2003 when she was featured in ITV documentary Essex Wives.

Career

Television and film appearances

In addition to glamour modeling, Marsh has also taken part in many reality television shows, including Trust Me - I'm A Holiday Rep, Channel 4's The Games, E4's Fool around...with Jodie Marsh on two occasions,² as a house guest in the short lived Five series Back to Reality, Sky One's Celebrity Penthouse, the one-off documentary Jodie Marsh: Close Up, and she appeared with her dogs in It's Me or the Dog. In 2005 she did several model shoots for Television X.³ In 2006, Marsh made her film debut in the British comedy Are You Ready for Love?

Marsh began presenting her own television series, Get A Life for Living TV which commenced 1 March 2007. It was cancelled after two episodes, due to poor viewing figures.⁴

Celebrity Big Brother

In January 2006, she appeared on Celebrity Big Brother in the UK. She clashed with a number of housemates, most notably Pete Burns, Michael Barrymore and George Galloway who grew tired of her describing her sexual experiences, and alleged victim mentality. She appeared, however, to establish a friendship with fellow housemate Chantelle Houghton. This friendship ended when the show finished.⁵ On Friday 13 January, Marsh was first to be voted out of the Big Brother house — with 8 out of 10 possible nominations (the highest ever margin) from her fellow housemates, but only 42% of the public vote.⁶She cried during her post-eviction interview with Davina McCall describing the experience as "horrific" and her housemates as "vile jealous bullies".⁵

Totally Jodie Marsh

Advertising poster for her 2007 show, as seen on the wall of the London Underground.

In May 2007, the website Marry Me Jodie Marsh was launched with the teaser "I'm getting married this September... Only problem is that I don't have a man!". Men were invited to submit an application for a series of open auditions for the chance to marry Marsh that September. MTV filmed the search and subsequent wedding.⁷

The reality series featuring Marsh entitled Totally Jodie Marsh: Who'll Take Her Up the Aisle?, premiered in July 2007 documenting Marsh's search to find a husband.⁸ Marsh eventually chose Matt Peacock, an ex-boyfriend of fellow glamour model Jordan.⁹

In the final episode of the show, MTV executives confronted Marsh and Matt Peacock with taped footage of Peacock's audition claiming he and Marsh had been dating for months and living together for three months, contrary to the show's claims. After the MTV executives left the room, Peacock accused Marsh of lying to MTV.¹⁰

The couple married on 1 September 2007 at Sugar Hut, an Essex nightclub. A second ceremony in her mother’s back garden was shown on MTV on 2 September 2007.¹¹ It was later revealed that Marsh had the wedding paid for by sponsors who believed that the wedding was genuine.¹²

The couple split up in December 2007.¹³ Marsh later admitted to Love It magazine in their 8th January 2008 issue that ".. the marriage was for TV. It was never for real." and "I'm not hiding the fact I did the TV show for money. Of course I did".¹⁴

Writing

Marsh wrote a weekly column for celebrity gossip magazine Sneak until its closure in August 2006 and was previously Zoo Weekly magazine's "sexpert", advising men on sex-related issues. Her choice as an agony aunt angered some established professionals.¹⁵

In 2005, Marsh published her autobiography Keeping It Real.¹⁶

Rivalry with other celebrities

Marsh is well known for her heated feuds with other celebrities, including a feud with fellow glamour-model Jordan.¹⁷

During her stint on Celebrity Big Brother, Marsh was on friendly terms with fellow contestant Chantelle Houghton, but this did not continue after the series. After Houghton won the competition and married Samuel Preston, Marsh took an opportunity to draw criticism about their marriage calling it "a publicity stunt". She went on to call Houghton "a waste of space", and "talentless".¹⁸

Personal life

It has been widely reported in British tabloids that Marsh has had a string of relationships with other celebrities including Fran Cosgrave, Calum Best, ex-Blazin' Squad singer and Celebrity Big Brother 2005 runner-up Kenzie.¹⁹

In December 2006, Marsh announced her engagement to Brentwood DJ David Doyle, after dating for eleven days.²⁰ Eschewing the traditional engagement ring, Marsh instead tattooed Doyle's full name on her hand and the couple appeared together in OK! magazine announcing their plan to marry in a fetish ceremony in a dungeon.²¹ The relationship ended between late December and mid-January 2007 with Doyle blaming Marsh's constant drinking and poor personal hygiene.²²

Since October 2008 Marsh has been dating a woman, known as Nina, a hairdresser.²³In the November issue of the UK edition of Star (magazine) Marsh gave a full interview about their relationship and recreated the iconic Vanity Fair front cover depicting Cindy Crawford shaving K.D. Lang. When asked how she would label her sexually Marsh replied if she had to choose 'I would be bi'. ²⁴

Other controversy

In 2004, Marsh sold a story to the News of the World claiming that she had a sexual liaison with Chelsea F.C. midfielder Frank Lampard. Lampard denied the claims and filed a complaint with Press Complaints Commission.²⁵

On 24 March 2006, Liberal Democrats education spokesman Phil Willis questioned Schools Minister Jacqui Smith in Parliament as to whether Marsh should be permitted access to schools in promoting her BeatBullying work, describing her blog as "the language of an appalling bully". Smith responded that, "Jodie Marsh does not represent the Department for Education and Skills in any way. "Decisions about giving people access to pupils in schools are a matter for individual head teachers and governing bodies."²⁶ Marsh described Willis as "just a sad, past-it old wannabe trying to get famous off my back". Willis later told the Daily Mail: "I just think we are descending really to the lowest common denominator when we are actually putting people on a pedestal like Jodie Marsh to send into our schools. I think we could find better role models."²⁶

On 11 August 2006, Marsh was booed by spectators at the annual Jersey Battle of Flowers Parade where she was a celebrity guest. The combined fee for Marsh and the parade's other celebrity guest, Andy Abraham, was estimated as £20,000. It has been suggested that this expense and the quality of the celebrity it bought contributed to the negative reception.²⁷

On 16 May 2007, Marsh stood atop a giant wedding cake in Leicester Square in London, dressed in a white tutu, with two white belts covering her nipples and carrying a bridal bouquet to promote her upcoming reality series Totally Jodie Marsh.²⁸ During the appearance, she was interviewed by journalist Jody Thompson who asked her, in addition to other questions, why she accused her one-time Big Brother housemate Chantelle Houghton of marrying for publicity only to do the very same thing. Marsh finished the interview but was filmed walking off stating, "I actually wanted to punch her [Thompson] in the face. Lesbian, blatantly! That short hair! And butch, looks like a man . . . She was a bitch from hell, she was a complete cow." The comments, which were broadcast on MTV, angered several gay rights activists.²⁹

References

External links

• Jodie Marsh at the Internet Movie Database
• Jodie Marsh at TV.com