Jo Wood's father compared modelling to prostitution.

Jo Wood

Jo Wood

The 63-year-old star started working as a model when she was just a teenager but her father initially did not approve of her chosen career.

She told The Mail On Sunday's You magazine: "When I told my dad I wanted to be a model, he said, 'Model is another word for prostitute!' But when I became one he was proud of me.

"I began going into London aged 14 to do a modelling course. Looking back, it was quite brave. I wouldn't have let my daughter do it but my mum had three younger children to look after, so she couldn't take me."

Jo also revealed that she loved the attention being a model brought.

She said: "I wasn't shy. I began modelling in the summer after leaving school and was voted the Face of 1972 just before Christmas. I never felt overwhelmed by the attention. I jumped at the chance to wear bikinis and a fur coat without a bra."

And Jo's idol was the beautiful blonde model Twiggy, now 68.

She said: "I was desperate to be like Twiggy. My mum and dad asked a photographer called Robert Hallmann to take some test shots of me that I could show to an agent."

Meanwhile, Jo previously revealed that her mother thought she'd die from drug abuse when she was younger.

The star says it is amazing she survived her hard-partying lifestyle 30 years ago, when she spent much of her time on the road with her then-husband Ronnie Wood and his band, the Rolling Stones, in a crazy existence that saw her take cocaine and smoke marijuana and rarely eat or sleep.

She told Closer magazine: "It was another lifetime and it's amazing I survived really.

"I dropped to 6st because I'd go days without eating. My body was like a stick, but it wasn't about pressure to look thin, I was just never hungry.

"I was doing so much cocaine at one point that I'd smoke a joint in the evening like having a glass of wine.

"I'd be partying until 5am and sleep during the day, it just didn't stop.

"My mum thought I was going to die. I could party harder than all the guys, be the last one up, yet still wake up and make breakfast for Ronnie and the kids."

But Jo turned her life around when her lifestyle began to catch up with her and she feels "lucky" to have quit her deadly habits before they got the better of her.

She said: "I suddenly knew I didn't want to be like this anymore, and that I needed to take control of my life, so I stopped the drugs.

"I consider myself lucky because I've seen friends who couldn't get out of it and got worse and worse, but I stopped at the right time."


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