CAMP PLIGHT
I was Playboy model & used to live at Hugh Hefner’s mansion… now it’s a tent near Reading – but I refuse to do OnlyFans
Louise spent her twenties jetting around the world attending celebrity bashes and posing for photoshoots
SHE once lived the high life in Hugh Hefner’s Hollywood mansion – but Britain’s top Playboy Bunny is now sleeping in a humble two-man tent on a farm.
Stunning Louise Glover, 41, says the cost-of-living crisis has left her with no choice because she cannot afford “impossible” rent hikes.
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The pin-up, who has modelled for Nike and Reebok, has been camping out for more than a month in her £60 temporary home as she battles to build her personal training and dog-walking businesses.
She said: “I am trying to stay upbeat and make the most of my situation, but it is difficult.
“I need to get myself out of this pickle soon. Things have to change before winter hits.
Glamour model Louise had been paying £550 per month for a room in a shared property near Windsor, Berks.
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But her rent rocketed to £750, and her businesses hit a lull, leaving her struggling to make ends meet.
Now Louise — who earned £1,000 a day at the height of her 20-year modelling career — calls her £130 camping set-up home.
At the site near Reading, she fries eggs on a small gas stove, which she also uses to boil a kettle for a soothing hot chocolate before bedding down in a sleeping bag on a double blow-up mattress.
She said: “I have two hot water bottles to sleep with at night.
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“I make sure I am on a campsite so I am safe and I also have my car.
“My luck will change soon.”
Noughties popstar has barely aged a day 22 years after stripping for Playboy
It is a far cry from her days partying with Paris Hilton and Leonardo DiCaprio, while living at the late Hefner’s sprawling estate.
After getting her first gig with Playboy following a test shoot in London aged 20, she went on to be the first Briton to be crowned the magazine’s Model of the Year.
Described as the “British Carmen Electra” by multi-millionaire Hugh, Louise spent her twenties jetting around the world attending celebrity bashes and posing for photoshoots.
She would return to her base at Playboy boss Hefner’s mansion, where she had a room rent-free with champagne on tap.
During the world-famous parties at the notorious £77million pad, Louise hung out with celebrity royalty such as DiCaprio, Rihanna, Matthew Perry, Snoop Dogg and Paris.
She said: “It was the best time, like another world.
“I didn’t even think about it that much at the time, but I was hanging out with the biggest names in the world.
I really liked Hugh, he was a total gentleman
Louise
“I loved all the other Playboy models, we were like a family.
“I really liked Hugh, he was a total gentleman.
“The mansion was incredible, there was even a zoo there. Everything was pink and had the Playboy Bunny logo on it.
“We had these wild parties. I once got my body painted and we all danced around Snoop Dogg as he performed on stage at the house.”
But when she was 27, Louise contracted septicemia following breast implant surgery and went into cardiac arrest. It left her in hospital for five weeks.
She said: “I nearly died because I was so ill from the infection. That was a wake-up call for me.
She decided to move away from her party lifestyle to focus on fitness and wellbeing. Louise recalled: “I started to train and moved into fitness and lifestyle modelling. I had deals with most of the major brands.
“Nike sponsored me and I felt like I was on the up again.”
She won first place at the Miami Pro Universe Championships and got a string of other fitness titles.
Having become a personal trainer, last year she travelled to Dubai to launch her PT classes there and carry out some promo work for Formula One and rugby.
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But she struggled to get a solid client base.
Louise said: “The whole place closed down around Christmas and I couldn’t get the work. I had to come back to the UK.”
Now, Louise spends her nights trying to keep warm as autumn sets in. But she says she would rather slum it than strip off online.
She explained: “It is hard now I am older, the modelling work isn’t there. I’d love to do presenting and I still do bits of promo work, but I refuse to do anything pornographic.
“I have too much self-respect for myself to go stripping as some have suggested. People ask me, ‘Why don’t you do Only Fans?’.
I have too much self-respect for myself to go stripping as some have suggested
Louise
“But I would rather get my life together and live here, in this field. I don’t need to lower myself to that. I have morals and self-respect.”
At the height of her modelling career, Louise used her bumper pay checks to travel the world.
But due to some bad luck she does not have the savings she needs to fall back on. She said: “I have been in relationships where men have taken money from me.
“I did have a few clients with my personal training company, but it dried up over the summer.
“I do dog sitting as well — but people aren’t going away as much because they don’t have the money.”
She added: “It isn’t all bad. There have been really special moments. I sat watching the shooting stars the other night, wrapped up in my sleeping bag.
"And a huge red kite flew down and nicked one of my eggs, which was pretty amazing.”
‘I don’t want to claim’
Louise asked for help from a homeless shelter but she was told she would not be a priority.
The model, who has appeared in videos with pop band Scouting For Girls and once dated Lee Ryan from boy band Blue, said: “I want to try to get my work back up because I am very self-reliant.
"Surviving and being independent is what I have always done.
“They said unless I have a child or an illness then I am the same level of need as anyone else on the streets.
“I don’t want to start claiming benefits at this point.
I don’t like to rely on people so I don’t want to couch surf at my mates’ houses. It isn’t me
Louise
“So they said I wouldn’t get help, basically. I tried to sleep in the car in a car park but you don’t know who is lurking about.
“Then I had the idea to get a tent. The weather was a lot better a few weeks ago though.”
Louise, who grew up in and out of foster care, lost both her parents seven years ago within the space of five months. She added: “I don’t have family to fall back on.
“I don’t like to rely on people so I don’t want to couch surf at my mates’ houses. It isn’t me.”
As she looks up at the gathering clouds from her tiny tent, Louise says with a sigh that she’s “starting from scratch” again.
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But she is trying to see the positives, as long as the weather holds.
She said: “In some ways, I feel calmer now I am here — because I have less to worry about. But then I probably do really, because if there’s a storm, I am stuck!”
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