New York – The cafe is hidden on Mercer Street. This is an intimate escape as it buzzes SoHo Street and storefronts, which display gorgeous fashion. The bar is packed with wine and coffee, books lined up on the walls, and the air is filled with fresh paperback scents. It’s the perfect environment to meet Keely Hazel. Its debut book, “Everyone Sees My Boobs: Stories and Reflections from Impossible Feminists,” was released on August 26th.
Hazell’s honest memoir, a model from previous Page 3, leaks more than celebrity gossip and how he landed topless in “The Sun” at just 18 years old. Hazell, now 38, showed readers that the tabloids of the 2000s did nothing, boldly confronting her emotional confusion, prompting parental trauma, class struggles and sexuality from the humiliation of revenge porn, as only possible with years of distance (and “many treatments”).
The provocative book titles were born in the late 20s, and exaggeration “encapsulates the feeling of being a teenager,” says Hazel. Her publisher has expressed concern about promoting the title on broadcast television, but Hazel says “there were no other titles.”
Rationally, Hazel knew that not everyone in the world saw her topless, but in the early days of her career she felt exposed and scrutinized in her everyday life.
“It’s everyone around you, and that’s what matters when you’re young. When you’re in puberty, you care about what everyone is thinking,” she says.
Her story resembles a debate about whether Sabrina Carpenter responds to “male gazes.” Today, signs with the phrase “Sex work is work” can be found in women’s marching and wrapped T-shirts, and Carpenter’s provocative status is praised for worshiping fans. However, when Hazell’s modeling career began, she says the conversation wasn’t that subtle.
“It’s the assumption that someone like me, who modeled in a sexual way, corresponds to the male gaze,” Hazel says. “Eight years ago… I said, “If you’re part of a man’s gaze and these oppressive systems, you’re not a feminist.” ”
Thus, “impossible feminists” were born.
Keely Hazel says, “My story is a story of social mobility.”
In the first chapter of the book, Hazel tells her that a journalist asks, “Are you a feminist?” Her response: “I’m not.”
She understands that men and women are treated differently, and her girlfriend will talk about “it looks like men are making it easier.” But the words themselves? “Feminist” was not even in the vocabulary.
Hazel grew up in a poor, working class family in Grove Park, southeast London. Her mother was a dinner lady and her father was a window fitter. The couple separated when they were 13 years old. Hazel “washed out for chicken and chip money,” and in her memoirs, it is the first time she remembers that she used her sexuality for financial gain. At age 13, she and her friends urge the taxi driver to masturbate in front of them, stealing their wallets and running away. Resisting to the encounter, she never did it again.
But Hazel says that the scene is essential to the book’s central story, essentially about class and social mobility, not feminism.
“In the UK, the class system is structured completely differently than the US. There is no dream for America,” she says from Soho Cafe.
For people from working class backgrounds, options were limited. Hazel struggled to find a job at a retail store, and it took her mother four years to secure a job at a supermarket. Modeling has become a means of advancement.
“I don’t think my modeling is a feminist act at all. It’s an act of social mobility and I think I’m trying to make myself financially better in order to move my life forward,” she explains.
In 2024, a report from Sutton Trust found that only 7% of UK-educated people attend private schools, while 35% of BAFTA-nominated actors have private education. In 2019, Sutton Trust reported that top jobs in UK politics, judicial, media and business are five times more likely to be in private schools than in general population.
Before becoming a three-page model, Hazell knew the stereotypes that come with lifestyle. The glamour model was designated as “silly” or “starved for fame.” However, when she formed friendships with fellow models, her perception of the industry changed dramatically.
“You understand how much of this is bred from coming from a low socioeconomic background. This is one way to make money,” she tells USA Today.
Keely Hazel didn’t want to talk about revenge porn, but did anyway
In 2007, Hazel was a victim of revenge porn after her ex-boyfriend, known as “Theo,” released a sex tape.
Hazell worked to revisit this. She realized that by talking about it, people would remind them that the tapes existed. For years she remained silent. Even having a private conversation about the experience makes her “explode in tears.” She speculated that people felt that the incident was her fault and promoted it to advance her career.
“Why am I talking about it with anyone when I don’t understand the violation that happened?” she says.
But “to elicit all kinds of change, we have to stand up to these things,” she adds.
Keely’s openness about her trauma is part of a larger move that destines the victim and demands accountability for image-based sexual abuse, which can sometimes be called “digital rape” and “body violations.” Anyone can be victimized, but 90% of victims of image-based sexual abuse are women.
While studying revenge porn, she traced it in the 1800s. Men were drawing crude pictures of women on postcards to destroy their reputation.
“As time goes on, men aren’t getting better. The law comes in and they find a way around it. Back in my time, you’ve shared videos and photos. Now it’s a crime,” she says. However, AI has created a new loophole: Deepfakes is being addressed in the US but is distributed on social media platforms like X.
“It’s like the ongoing evolution of men who can shame and restrain women and find ways to ruin their lives.
Following the release of the tape, she went through a complete shutdown of sexuality.
“I hadn’t had sex with anyone for over a year and a half,” she says. She ended her glamour modeling career by deciding to make decisions based on mental health rather than financial gain.
“If you wanted to jump out the window, there was no point in doing this and having this money,” she says. “I had to regain my sexuality so I could understand it. It was a recall and healing process.”
“Ted Lasso” character Keely and media misrepresentation
When Hazel is approached by Jason Sudeikis, a co-worker of “Ted Lasso,” who is only referred to as “J,” in the book, she says she wants to dispel the stereotypes that have plagued her career.
“He recalls, ‘I’ll meet you. You’re two very separate things about your real life and how you are presented in the media,” she recalls.
But Keely Jones, the character of the show, a model-turned-PR consultant who turned AFC Richmond, is like “my SNL version.”
Originally, Hazel was intended to be cast as the fictional “Keeley,” but the role went to Juno Temple. Junho Temple says it comes from a “very privileged background” that contrasts her living experiences.
“It was difficult for me,” she admits. “When it’s essential to me and I have my name, I don’t want to use it in any way unless it’s real.
“What I’m doing a bit of a cheating is that it becomes an expression of these things, but it’s not really a change,” she continues. “You’re selling this idea and this notion that there’s no evidence of real life.”
In the book, she writes about this tension:
However, she realized she had no control over the show’s story, and it was happening “with or without her.” Acting as “Bex” in “Ted Lasso” contributed to her “complex relationship with the show”, but allowed her to exist when the character “Keeley” comes to life.
Keely Hazel’s fan base is “very male”, but this book is “for everyone.”
Hazell wrote this memoir to understand her past, but those who read “everyone saw my boobs” hope to “learn something or be entertained.”
“My fanbase has always been very male,” she says. “And when I talk about vengeance porn, these things go from men to women.”
She wonders whether her book will affect male readers: “If men can understand better, will that change things?”
Before beginning her acting career, it was suggested that she would change her name from three pages to distance. But Hazel doesn’t want to hide from the assumptions people have about her.
As her book ends, she writes about the power to know herself. By regaining your voice when others take it from you.
“I’ve now reached the point where I accept it just by owning it, and I don’t want to change it,” she says as she closes our conversation. “I regret a lot, but now I’m more conscious of the barriers of systemic class. I’ve accepted regret as part of my life, but I understand my choices more.”
