Most would agree that a honeymoon has to be different from a normal holiday – usually more lavish, exotic or far-flung. 

But what if your normal holidays already feature five-star hotels and luxury resorts? 

Model, presenter and actress Kelly Brook laughs about how she opted to slum it while ‘honeymooning’ with Jeremy Parisi, the Italian model and actor she married two years ago.

‘We spent our honeymoon on a 26-hour bus journey in South America. We hadn’t really had a honeymoon at all until we did this trip – apart from a weekend at Camber Sands. 

But we do go on lovely holidays normally, so what was a honeymoon to us? This was different. When it was first suggested, the answer was a no. 

Kelly Brook and Jeremy Parisi first met on Instagram – but he spoke no English and had no idea who she was

I said to my agent, “I’ve travelled the world in a really lovely way. Why would I do that again, and suffer?” But when I thought about it, I said, “Jeremy, babe, it’s like a free honeymoon for us. It will certainly be different.”’

This is how glamour-girl Kelly, now 44, ended up signing on for the latest celebrity version of the BBC’s Race Across The World, bringing Jeremy, 38, along for the adventure (and to carry the stash of coins she would need to access public toilets en route). 

Fans of the show will know the format. Couples – whether husband and wife teams, mother and child, siblings or just friends – race across a continent, hoping to be first to reach a final destination. 

This time it’s South America, from the Amazon to the Andes, and Kelly’s rivals are presenter Jeff Brazier and son Freddie, Ted Lasso’s Kola Bokinni and his cousin Mary Ellen and Radio 2’s Scott Mills and his husband Sam. 

At the start of their epic journey, their phones are confiscated and they are given only £1,000 in cash, which has to cover all their travel, meals and accommodation.

And Kelly might be the most unlikely contestant yet. She cites that gruelling 26-hour bus journey as the stuff of her worst nightmares. 

‘I remember watching the first celebrity series and seeing Harry Judd and his mum do an eight-hour train ride. At the time I thought, “I couldn’t do that.” Cut to me on a bus in South America…’

It’s hard to imagine the rather glorious Kelly on a bus at all, never mind in searing heat, squished in like a sardine. She tells me she did put her foot down at Jeremy’s suggestion they go for the cheapest seats (they upgraded to a bed, of sorts), but still. 

Kelly and Jeremy are set to star in Celebrity Race Across The World (pictured), which starts Wednesday 14 August, 9pm, on BBC1 and BBC iPlayer

We can’t reveal how they get on (the show has already been filmed) but she does say the whole experience was ‘life-changing’. The biggest evidence? She’s started taking public transport to her job at Heart radio in London, which was a big no-no before.

‘The whole trip pushed me out of my comfort zone and my anxiety levels are so much lower now. I even get the Tube! I never used to. I’d get quite paranoid about not being able to escape if people came up to me. 

‘It’s not that I don’t like talking to people, but you can feel a bit trapped. I used to get a cab every day to work just so I could get out if I needed to. Now? I can do it. Even if we stop in a tunnel I can cope because I say to myself, “Listen, you survived a 26-hour bus journey.”’

She is aware how diva-like this seems. ‘I know it sounds silly. People at work say, “But we all get the Tube every day,” but for me it was massive. It’s changed my life hugely. And I’ll tell you what. It’s saving me a fortune.’

What will the series do for her career, though? In addition to her radio show she has several endorsements, but it could well give her a huge boost because it showcases a very different type of Kelly, one who is mostly make-up free, ‘sweating like a pig’, and filmed from all sorts of unflattering angles. 

And does she give a monkey’s? No! ‘This is me, as raw as it gets,’ she says today. ‘But would I have done this sort of show ten years ago? No way!’

So who is Kelly Brook these days? That is a question that even she can’t quite answer. 

The Kelly most people think they know grew up in Kent and started as a glamour model, then a TV presenter (most famously hosting The Big Breakfast with Johnny Vaughan) but was better known still for her va-va-voom curves and almost permanent position at the top of the Sexiest Women In The World polls.

Then she went all Hollywood on us, moving to the States to launch a career as a movie actress. She had some success with films like Ripper, and did star in the hit show Smallville, but it’s fair to say she didn’t set Hollywood alight. 

She did get engaged a lot, though, mostly to other smoulderingly attractive celebrities (the list of those she never quite married includes actors Jason Statham and Billy Zane and rugby players Danny Cipriani and Thom Evans).

In 2014 though she met the man now sitting by her side, mostly unable to get a word in, but unquestionably the one who restored her faith in men. ‘And we didn’t actually get engaged,’ she beams. ‘I mean, I got the ring, but I didn’t make a big deal of it.’

Kelly says she was once cast on the basis of her looks, often as the ‘sexy girl who gets killed first’. Pictured in 2010’s Piranha 3D

And she was the one who proposed. ‘Two years ago, when we’d been together for eight years, I said to him, “Babe, I’m getting old now. We really need to get married. We just need to get on with this now.” 

‘I wasn’t waiting for a proposal. Because I’d been engaged a couple of times before I think Jeremy thought, “That doesn’t really work out for Kelly,” but he’s Italian, from a really family-­oriented background. And we just wanted to be a family.’

Lucky Kelly seems to have bagged not just a man who looks like a Greek god, but one who can clean, cook and have dinner on the table when she gets home. ‘He does! Every night. 

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Kelly Brook says marriage to Jeremy Parisi has ‘simplified her life’ as they prepare to live on an olive oil farm in Italy

‘And by the time I open my eyes in the morning he’s been up, put a wash on and walked the dog. And he’s my best friend. He’s not in competition with me. He is… family, it’s the best way to put it. It’s like sleeping with my brother – oh, maybe I shouldn’t say that, but you know what I mean.’

Where did she find him? On Instagram! She fell in lust with Jeremy’s picture, and sent him a cheeky follow request. He takes over the story. 

‘My account was private, but I clicked on her profile to see – and could not believe when it said she was famous. I hadn’t heard of her, but I went to Wiki and – my God! I said to my friend, “Why would she want to follow me?” and he said, “Women like that want nice men too.”’ Kelly points out, ‘At first he thought it was a wind-up. He thought I was catfishing him!’

They followed each other, then Kelly felt emboldened enough to ask if they could Facetime. He was still suspecting that he might find himself face-to-face with a scammer, but no. There was the actual Kelly Brook on his screen. 

Kelly might be the most unlikely contestant yet of Race Across The World. She cites that gruelling 26-hour bus journey as the stuff of her worst nightmares

There was only one problem though – at the time he didn’t speak a word of English. So how did they communicate? ‘Through the language of lurve,’ she laughs, although he explains that Google Translate was key.

For three months they had a long-distance friendship (she was in LA at the time, he was in Paris), then she announced she was coming to London and did he want to meet up in person. ‘Our lives were still in very different places. I saw it more as a holiday romance,’ says Kelly.

But then came a chain of events that changed everything. First, the sitcom Kelly was filming in LA was cancelled. ‘I decided to come home to Kent,’ she says, ‘and as it happens the Eurostar terminal is at the end of my road. It was only a skip to Paris.’

So began a proper courtship, one she knew was serious when she discovered he’d turned down the chance to audition for a Luc Besson film – for her. 

‘He had been due to go but he told me he’d been looking out of the window and saw me in my bathrobe feeding the ducks and he thought, “How can I leave this woman?”’

Eventually Jeremy moved to the UK, where the plan was for her to pick up acting work, yet it didn’t quite pan out like that. Again, her candour is striking. ‘I kind of had to start again because I’d been in LA and in London everything had moved on in our industry. 

I signed with Keira Knightley’s agency, then my accountant said, “Oh my God, you need to get a job,” but I couldn’t get acting work in the UK.’ And she still can’t. ‘I just can’t. It’s a closed door on me. I’m too well known. Or I’m too well known for being who I am.’

Kelly Brook and Jeremy Parisi Cirque du Soleil’s ‘KURIOS: Cabinet of Curiosities’ premiere, Royal Albert Hall, London, in 2023

Kelly did once say she was a terrible actress, but she seems a bit offended when reminded of this today, perhaps because Jeremy – bless him – rushes to her defence and bigs up her acting career (‘when I told my friend she’d been in Smallville, he said, “Wow!”’).

‘I think I’m alright,’ she shrugs. ‘But my agent told me it’s because I don’t have the right acting pedigree. We’re very classist in the UK. I can either be in EastEnders or Corrie, and that’s it. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with soaps, but those kinds of shows require a huge commitment.’

She acknowledges she was cast very much on the basis of her looks. ‘It was those roles in horror movies where the sexy girl gets killed first. So yes, I did play those a lot [memorably in 2010’s Piranha 3D].’

You could argue she was treated like a piece of meat by the industry. ‘Yeah, back in the 90s when I walked into a casting they’d be like, “Oh, boobs too big. Next!” They wouldn’t even ask your name. It was degrading, but we don’t live in that world any more, surely?’

She’s out of that game completely now, she says. ‘I’m not doing it for the male gaze now,’ she says. ‘Whereas in my earlier career it was very much for the male gaze. That was my business. Less so now that I’m married.’

She’s surprisingly reluctant to talk about her body these days, although there is a matter-of-fact approach to her own (weight) journey. ‘I’m getting older, bigger. Everything changes, but I do think the industry is kinder these days. I don’t think it’s fashionable to judge women in the same way.’

How does she square a ‘size doesn’t matter’ approach with the fact that she endorses the brand Slimfast? ‘The way I approach that is it’s not about attaining a certain size. It’s about being a fit and healthy version of yourself. It’s not about suddenly dropping three dress sizes, becoming a size zero.’ 

Another burst of laughter. ‘Not that dropping three dress sizes would make me a size zero. It would probably make me a 12.’

Not true. She reckons she’s a size 12 around the waist, although a good 14 on her bust and hips. Actually, she still has a body shape that defies belief. ‘She has an amazing body,’ says Jeremy.

Kelly is pictured at day five of the Wimbledon Championships last month

But back to her career. For a while she did think she could combine the Hollywood career and domesticity, living with Jeremy and the ducks at their idyllic farmhouse in Kent [they sold it last year]. But when a duck scratched her arm to shreds before she flew to LA the next day for an audition, it made her realise the two were incompatible.

Goodbye Hollywood, then. And good riddance, by the sound of things. Does she miss it? ‘No, I really don’t.’ There’s a telling moment in the first episode of Race Across The World where Kelly questions if Kelly Brook even exists. 

She jokes today about how she’s now not entirely sure ‘whether I’m Kelly Brook, Kelly Parsons [her birth name] or Kelly Parisi.’ Jeremy seems more certain. ‘She is not Kelly Brook. She is Kelly Parisi. She is my wife.’ She seems ecstatic. ‘Thanks babe,’ she says.

And we could be seeing more of Mr and Mrs Parisi. The pair are in talks for a new reality show, following them as they set up home in his native Italy. Which is another epic adventure altogether. Will it involve public transport, though? ‘Well, it could now,’ she grins.

• Celebrity Race Across The World starts Wednesday 14 August, 9pm, on BBC1 and BBC iPlayer.