Model and Capital FM presenter Lisa Snowdon is gamely braving a chilly English summer day to pose by a swimming pool for hello!’s photoshoot. She is wearing a swimsuit that shows off her enviable figure – “It’s due to maintenance. I’m not going to lie” – and she stretches out her long limbs, which are tanned from a recent holiday.
Lisa, 39, who split from Cardiff City footballer Jay Bothroyd last month, went on the “healing, boosting” break in the Turks and Caicos by herself. It would be easy to presume that the Marks & Spencer model has a long line of smitten men eager to whisk her away on a romantic break. But she says this isn’t the case – and her social life isn’t helped by having to wake at 4.30am to co-host Capital’s breakfast show with Johnny Vaughan.
“I don’t go anywhere,” she
confesses. “I go to the supermarket, I go to work. So there aren’t many opportunities to meet people. Unless you’re kind of bonding over the deli counter, it’s not going to happen.”
Lisa has tended to meet her men through work, and former flames include CSI actor Gary Dourdan, comedian David Walliams, model Paul Sculfor and a certain Mr George Clooney, whom she met on the set of a Martini advertisement in 2000.
GORGEOUS GEORGE
Lisa dated the world’s most eligible bachelor – also recently single again after splitting with Italian model Elisabetta Canalis – on and off for five years.
It’s easy to see why he was attracted to 5ft 10in Lisa. The English beauty has the perfect blend of exotic looks combined with girl-next-door
charm. Like George, she has an independent spirit and doesn’t take herself too seriously.
One bookmaker has even offered odds on Lisa and George reuniting. Please tell us it could happen again…
“He’s a great guy,” she says with a smile. “We’re friends. I got back with George a couple of times, and have also got back with other exes, because sometimes I’ve felt like it’s a safer place to go,” she adds. “But you do have to realise you split for a reason.
“We finished amicably,” she adds. “George sponsored me for a skydive.” The Ocean’s Eleven star donated £12,000 – and quipped he’d give £100,000 if the parachute didn’t open!
He was married once – for almost four years, to actress Talia Balsam – so would he marry again? “I can’t really speak on his behalf. But my feeling is that he did get married, he did try it and it didn’t worl, so maybe he won’t do it again. But you never know what’s around the corner.”
It can’t be easy to be constantly asked about an ex, but Lisa answers in good grace. She is keen to stress, however, that she’s not exploiting their relationship. “I don’t ever bring him up in conversation,” she says. “I don’t want people to think, ‘Oh, there she is, banging on about George.’”
Hertfordshire-born Lisa is currently “very single” and happy that way. “I don’t feel my life is incomplete,” she says. “I don’t feel a man defines who I am. I’m not lonely, I have great friends and I’m really close to my family.”
Lisa admits she’s “quite fussy” when it comes to potential suitors and likes them to be tall “because I’m a tall girl and I like my heels”.
“I went on a blind date dinner once and it was at a disaster,” she says. “It
was at a friend’s dinner party and she was like, ‘I’ve got this great single guy’ and I just thought, ‘Oh God, this is going to be bad…’.
“I got there and he was wearing leather pants and I was like, ‘Hell, no!’
“That’s really awful and shallow, because you need to look beyond the tight leather trousers,” she laughs. “But I know a lot of women would feel the same way.”
Would she ever date someone who wasn’t in the public eye? “I’d love to,” she says. “Somebody who had never heard of Blake Lively or Gossip Girl would be really refreshing.”
A GIRL’S GIRL
While some models appear inaccessible and aloof, Lisa is quite the opposite. She’s a girl’s girl – as testified by the fact that she was voted
into third place on the 2009 series of Strictly Come Dancing.
“I like that a lot. That started when I was doing the Special K adverts [in the 1990s]. I got letters from women saying, ‘You’ve got a really inspirational figure’ because I was never stick-thin.”
She has never relied on her looks. “Growing up, my parents were never like, ‘Aren’t you cute’,” she says. “It was more about what I said or did. My dad was like, ‘Tell that joke…’”
Lisa’s parents Nigel and Lydia, who are separated, and her two younger sisters help keep her feet firmly on the ground. “They always have,” she explains. “If I was on a magazine cover, they’d be like, ‘Oh my God, what are you wearing?’ Or if I did a TV commercial, they’d be, ‘Why did you say that? It was stupid.’ They’re so funny. Thank God they are like that.”
Her family rallied round last
November when Lisa was struck with viral meningitis. “It was scary,” she admits. “I just realised that without your health you’ve got nothing. It made me think about living in the moment and just wanting everyone around me to be healthy.”
ALMOST 40… AND FABULOUS
Lisa turns 40 next January. “It’s just a number,” she says, obviously nonplussed. “I’m like, ‘How did that happen?’ But when I look back, I’ve had a fun-filled twenties and thirties and have seen a lot of the world and done a lot of things.” She says she wants to go on a girls’ holiday to celebrate, then possibly have a family party later in the year.
Lisa still looks as good as when she burst onto our TV screens as the Special K girl. She works hard to keep her figure in check.
