Samantha Fox

Samantha Karen Fox (born 15 April 1966) is an English pop singer and former glamour model from Mile End in the East End of London.

She has also appeared on reality television shows, and has occasionally worked as a television presenter.

Fox was born on 15 April 1966, the eldest child of John Patrick Fox, a builder, and Carole Ann Wilken, an actress and former dancer on the 1960s pop music programme Ready, Steady, Go! She grew up in Mile End in the East End of London, later describing her background as "a working-class market-trader family".

She had one full sibling, a younger sister Vanessa, who died in March 2023, aged 50.

She is recognised today as the most popular pin-up girl of her era, as well as one of the most photographed British women of the 1980s, alongside Diana, Princess of Wales, and Margaret Thatcher.

Her first single, credited to S.F.X., was a cover version of the 1981 Lesley Jayne song "Rocking with My Radio", released on the Lamborghini Records label.

It was produced by Ian Gillan Band and Spencer Davis Group member Ray Fenwick, who also wrote the B-side, "My Old Man".

Fox rose to fame as a Page 3 model in The Sun tabloid newspaper, where she appeared regularly from 1983 until 1986, becoming one of the most photographed British women of the 1980s and a prominent sex symbol of the era.

Fox's first Page 3 photograph appeared in The Sun on 22 February 1983, under the headline "Sam, 16, Quits A-Levels for Ooh-Levels".

Fox attempted to launch a music career in 1983.

She signed a four-year modelling contract with The Sun, and was named "Page 3 Girl of the Year" for three consecutive years from 1984–86.

She also made modelling appearances in multiple men's magazines.

During her glamour modelling career, she insured her breasts for £1 million, inspired by Betty Grable insuring her legs for $1 million.

In 1985, she appeared in a David Cassidy music video and modelled for an accompanying photoshoot; she later claimed that Cassidy sexually assaulted her during the shoot and again afterwards in the toilets of a restaurant.

She left Page 3 in 1986 to focus on her singing career.

Released in March of that year, her debut single for the Jive Records label, "Touch Me (I Want Your Body)", became a top-10 hit across Europe, North America, and Australia, reaching number one in several countries.

She released her debut studio album Touch Me in July 1986, and followed it with the studio albums Samantha Fox in 1987 and I Wanna Have Some Fun in 1988, each of which produced international hit singles.

Fox left Page 3 in 1986, aged 20, to focus on her singing career.

At the Brit Awards 1988, she was nominated in the British Female Solo Artist category.

Fox's parents separated in 1988.

Fox's subsequent studio albums Just One Night (1991), 21st Century Fox (1997), and Angel with an Attitude (2005) were less commercially successful, but she has continued to tour and has announced a forthcoming seventh studio album, produced by Ian Masterson.

Fox claims that her father, who abused cocaine and alcohol, violently assaulted her in 1991, leaving her with cuts, bruises, and two broken ribs.

Prior to 1991 Fox had her father manage her career.

After firing her father in 1991, Fox hired accountants to trace over £1 million that she believed he had embezzled from her accounts.

Her father had moved her money into offshore bank accounts, and had not paid tax on Fox's earnings for 10 years.

She sued and was awarded a £363,000 court settlement in 1995.

However, the funds from the court settlement were used to settle her tax bill.

She made occasional glamour modelling appearances later in her career, including a nude photoshoot for the October 1996 issue of Playboy magazine when she was aged 30.

Following the legal dispute over her finances, she spoke to her father only once during the last decade of his life; he died in 2000.

She has two half-siblings, Frederica and Frankie, from her father's second marriage.

Fox took an interest in the theatre from an early age, attending the Anna Scher Theatre School from age five, and subsequently attending Mountview Theatre School.

She also attended St Thomas More Catholic School, Wood Green.

She formed her first pop band when she was 14 and signed her first record deal with Lamborghini Records at age 15.

Fox's glamour modelling career began at age 16 when her mother took photographs of her wearing lingerie and submitted them to The Sunday People 's "Face and Shape of '83" amateur modelling contest.

After Fox placed second in the contest, a photographer for The Sun invited her to pose topless for Page 3.

Following rumours about her sexual orientation, Fox came out as a lesbian in 2003.

She was in a long-term relationship with her former manager Myra Stratton from 2003 until the latter's death in 2015.

British publications could then legally feature topless models aged 16 and older, although the minimum age was raised to 18 in 2004.

Fox later said she was grateful for the opportunity to break into glamour modelling, since many people in her area were unemployed or had "rough, low-paying jobs”. She had previously considered joining the police force, but at 155 cm (5 feet 1 inch) tall, did not meet the height requirement then in place of 163 cm (5 feet 4 inches) for female officers. Having become comfortable with sunbathing topless on European beaches, she later said that she did not consider nudity a "big deal".

She became engaged to Linda Birgitte Olsen in 2020 and the couple married in 2022.