Jodie Marsh may have risen to fame in the early noughties as a Page Three glamour model, but more than two decades on, she lives a very different life away from the world of red carpets and paparazzi. Back in the noughties, the 46-year-old TV personality was known for her outlandish outfits and rivalry with fellow lads’ mags heavyweight Katie Price, though now she can be found living a simpler life on her beloved farm.
As part of her new lifestyle, Essex-born Jodie has poured her passion for helping animals into her dedicated sanctuary Fripps Farm, which she opened in 2020, and gives fans a peek inside her work over on Instagram. Today, Jodie’s sanctuary has come under the spotlight as she is set to appear at Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court to appeal against a decision of Uttlesford District Council to refuse an application to keep lemurs at her private sanctuary. With that in mind, here the Mirror takes a look at the Celebrity Big Brother star’s life now away from the cameras…
The staunch animal rights activist is now enjoying life on her farm after launching her own animal sanctuary Fripps Farm in Great Dunmow, Essex. In a snap from last year, Jodie looked unrecognisable as she posed at her sanctuary with pals including EastEnders star Jessie Wallace.
Jodie was seen make-up-free with her bleached hair tied back into a ponytail while wearing a jumper which read: “Stop Eating Dead Animals”. In the early days of the farm, Jodie turned to OnlyFans and glamour modelling to help pay the bills.
She told Mail Online: “Before we became a C.I.C (Community Interest Company) I was funding it all myself and I did it by doing OnlyFans. The perimeter fence alone for securing the animals cost £60,000 so I had to pay for that with OnlyFans. My boobs paid for the fences and they also paid the staff’s wages!”
In a chat with MailOnline in November 2024, Jodie revealed more about her finances, admitting that work dried up when she was forced to step back from the limelight. She said she became sick of trolls ‘being nasty’, but then she reached a point where she could no longer afford her mortgage.
“I couldn’t pay any bills. I was completely skint. I was really in a mess,” she said. She turned to the self-help book The Secret for motivation and began writing a gratitude journal. She penned that she wanted to get her hands on a brand new Audi Q7, and two years later, she did just that. She started making her money with American bodybuilding, and was soon named champion as she competed for cash.
After swapping glitzy parties and showbiz spats for a more peaceful life running Fripps Farm Animal Sanctuary, she reportedly rakes in thousands through her OnlyFans account to keep her passion afloat.
Jodie explained: “We needed to put perimeter fencing around the whole entire farm, and that cost £65,000. I funded that entire thing from my OnlyFans. For the first year my OnlyFans also paid all my staff. I never took a penny for myself.
“Now, I probably only make a couple of grand a month on it, because I’ve been really slack on it because I’m so busy with the animals. But I’m back posting again so that should shoot up again now. Back when I was paying the staff wages I was earning around £10,000 a month.”
The TV personality revealed the monthly costs are a whopping £24,000—and this is before vet bills. Running a farm often comes with surprise costs, with Jodie claiming she once spent £20,000 alone on rescuing pony Maximus, who had been left to die on the side of the road.
Luckily, her fans and followers of the farm have stepped up in their time of need, with them often relying on donations. “We couldn’t have done it without them,” she told MailOnline.
Last year Jodie revealed she’d split from her builder boyfriend Mark, just three months after claiming he was her “first adult” relationship. In March 2024, she posted a series of modelling photos to Instagram, writing: “I think this sums up why I’ll never find a life partner.
“I want a lovely calm, happy, peaceful life, rescuing animals. I want to lay on the sofa and read books and listen to music. I want to plant rose bushes in the garden and I’m actually quite boring. I need a man who understands that my life isn’t all glam and craziness. Someone who wants to chill with me and realises that I can be quite boring but who enjoys the quiet times. I need a man who understands I live a simple life in the countryside.'”
Mark worked as a builder at her animal sanctuary and Jodie previously told Mail Online she was in her first “adult relationship”. “I’ve had a lot of ag with boyfriends. I’ve not had a good time in the past with men. I’ve been targeted by con men who have pretended to be one thing and then, and then actually their true colours have shown and they’re not who they say they are at all. But also I’ve made bad choices in the past, but we all do when it’s matters of the heart,” she said.
Her split comes after two failed marriages. She first tied the knot to James Peacock in 2007 after the pair met on the reality show Totally Jodie Marsh: Who’ll Take Her Up the Aisle? However they parted ways just two months later.
In 2016, she was then married for eight months to James Placido. The former model was also engaged to DJ David Doyle in 2006 after just 11 days of dating, but the couple called it quits just weeks later.
It was with a heavy heart that Jodie announced the death of her beloved mum Kristina in September 2020 from cancer. Taking to Twitter, she wrote: “My beautiful, classy, kind, generous, clever, incredible mum passed away this morning. She was my best friend and the strongest woman I know.
“She was the best mum in the world and the best human you could ever wish to know. I love you so so much mum. How do I do this without you?” Just four months before, Jodie told how her mum had been ‘turfed out of hospital’ because of the coronavirus pandemic despite battling an aggressive form of cancer, and admitted she was ‘fading fast’ at home.
In January 2021, she bravely shared her grief with fans, revealing she was struggling to cope under the weight of the grief. “Today has been a rough day for me. I’ve felt angry and frustrated all day, until eventually I had a melt down/outburst and then deep crying sobs. I am really struggling today,” she told her Instagram followers.
“I miss mum so much and it feels like as the world carries on; I’m supposed to just be normal and fine when I don’t feel it at all. Inside I’m broken and trying every day to hold it together. I’m also trying to be strong for those around me. I know I don’t have to be but I WANT to be. Anyway, I don’t want sympathy, I just wanted to share how I’m feeling.”
The reality star added: “I’ve been crying since about 3pm and I can’t stop. And that’s ok. It’s ok to cry and it’s normal to grieve. It’s good to talk about it.”
In 2021, Katie Price reignited her decades-old feud with Jodie by branding her a ‘nobody’ in her bombshell book, Harvey And Me. The former glamour model took aim at her longtime nemesis in the pages of her autobiography, calling her ‘the lowest of the low’ for dating Katie’s ex after she met Peter Andre on I’m A Celebrity.
“I met my first husband Peter Andre when I was in the jungle,” Katie wrote. “I had a couple of relationships when Harvey was a baby, and I was with a guy called Scott Sullivan at the time. But you know me there’s always some drama, I had actually split up with him just before I did the show, so it wasn’t just like I bunny hopped to another man.
“And then Scott went to the lowest of the low and got with Jodie Marsh.” Over the years there has been some major mud-slinging between the two women, with Katie once claiming Jodie slept with “nearly all my leftovers and not one of them wanted you.”
She also mocked Jodie’s appearance, comparing her rival’s nose to ‘a builder’s elbow’. In retaliation, Jodie hit out at Katie’s ‘Bond villain teeth’, retweeting a meme of Katie’s gnashers with a series of laughing emojis.
But in a turn of events, earlier this year in April 2024, Jodie showed her support to the mum-of-five in one of her latest Instagram posts. Katie shared a video where she talked about a product that helps her cope with stress.
Jodie commented: “I use it too it’s amazing.” Fans flooded her comment with likes as they appeared to take the remark as a sign they could become friends. It was the first time Jodie broke her silence after Katie appeared to extend an olive branch.
Speaking on her Katie Price Show podcast, she said: “I’ve never had a problem with her [Jodie] and I always say to people, we’d probably get on because we both love animals, horses. We’ve both been through the mill. I don’t actually have a problem with her and never had and if she reached out. Imagine if me and her did an OnlyFans shoot, that would be one for the thing wouldn’t it. I wouldn’t rule that out, if Jodie wanted to do an OnlyFans shoot.”
In an interview with the Mail Online, Jodie pleaded with Katie to “stop spending money”, as her former nemesis is declared bankrupt for the second time. Jodie urged: “She can still earn. Go out and graft and keep the money. Just stop spending, especially on plastic surgery.”
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