Sophie Anderton (born May 14, 1977 in Bristol) is an English model and reality television personality.

Biography

Anderton attended Redland High School for Girls in Bristol between 1988 and 1993. At the age of 11, she sustained serious injuries in a car accident necessitating some 18 operations from which she took four years to recover. In 1993 she briefly attended Bristol Cathedral School before becoming a model at age 16.

She became famous in 1996 after appearing in the provocative Gossard Glossies "Girl in the grass" national advertising campaign shot by Herb Ritts, with the strapline "Who said a woman couldn't get pleasure from something soft?". The campaign attracted a record number of complaints (321) to the Advertising Standards Authority, none of which were upheld. The ASA later found out that the majority of complaints came from women who had never seen the ads, and had been encouraged to write in by an outraged newspaper columnist.

Earnings of £30,000 per week propelled her into the ranks of the it-girls and allowed her to lead a lifestyle of parties, drugs and sex. The UK tabloid press reported this in detail, even more so when she became addicted to cocaine, had a tumultuous affair with footballer and fellow addict Mark Bosnich, and became involved in prostitution.

She traces her cocaine addiction back to when she was prescribed morphine after her car accident as a child –
"The amount of painkillers I was given. Every time I had a pain in my leg I got used to numbing it out."

—Sophie Anderton, BBC Real Story, May 2004

In 2006, she was diagnosed and treated for bipolar disorder.

Campaigns

* Gossard 1996-
* Completing the Flora London Marathon.
* British Berries summer fruits campaign 2006.
* Maxim magazine.
* Peacocks (retailer) - Breast cancer awareness.
* La Senza's Christmas collection (November 2006)
* Fake bake

Reality TV

In 2004, Anderton was a contestant on the fourth series of ITV's I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, where she came fifth and was remembered for having a disagreement with singer Natalie Appleton.

She has also taken part in Simply the Best and a celebrity edition of the UK version of Fear Factor. In 2005, she appeared in the programme Cold Turkey which followed her attempts to quit smoking cigarettes alongside Tara Palmer Tomkinson. She later became the face of the SOS Instant Quit Programme which consists of a mouth spray which makes smokers feel sick at the smell and taste of cigarette smoke. She has since resumed the habit.

In 2006, Anderton was a contestant on the second series of ITV's Love Island. Known as Me-Me by the show's presenters, Fearne Cotton and Patrick Kielty, she was covered extensively in the press as being emotionally unstable, crying relentlessly and being highly self-absorbed. She fell out with friend, Lady Victoria Hervey, after Anderton transferred her affections from Shane Lynch to Hervey's island interest Chris Brosnan. After a long discussion expressing how upset she was with her former friend's behaviour, Hervey then poured a bottle of wine over Anderton's head. Anderton was evicted from the show on August 25.

Anderton appeared on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross on September 22, 2006, and announced that she was about to star in a new TV series. The series was later announced as Sky One's Cirque de Celebrité, but had to quit after she sustained ligament damage.

Prostitution

In 2008 Anderton admitted to wanting to have sex with Max Evans for £5,000, arranged by a brothel madam in Florence, Italy but he declined citing the fact he didn't want to contract hep c.

In 2007, British tabloid newspaper News Of The World and Mazher Mahmood conducted an entrapment operation, in which Anderton both took and offered cocaine and offered to have sex with Mahmood for £10,000. Her £100,000pa contract with fake tan firm Fake Bake was terminated the next day, citing her drug use.

Relationships

At the age of 19 she started seeing millionaire Robert Hanson, 17 years her senior, who introduced her to a world of royalty, private jets, glitz and glamour. The relationship lasted 4 years.

Matt Graham, a previous boyfriend, told the press: "I was trapped in a nightmare relationship with the girl. It was simply two years of hell. The sex was amazing, really steamy, some of the best I've ever had. But it wasn't worth having to put up with all her emotional baggage." Graham said that Anderton had lesbian sex behind his back and boasted that the best sex she'd ever had was with a woman.

After an early period in her modelling career as muse to the designer Scott Henshall, from 2002 to 2004 she had a tumultuous relationship with the footballer Mark Bosnich, before leaving him due to a cycle of drug taking and violence. In 2004 she met and was subsequently engaged to nightclub owner Mark Alexiou, but the relationship broke up soon after her call-girl confession.

After returning from Fiji for Love Island, it was reported that she was dating Crystal Palace F.C. chairman Simon Jordan. The relationship quickly broke up.

External links

* Sophie Anderton | Cover Girls | Maxim Girls | Maxim Magazine UK