ASBO neighbours scream ‘sl*g’ over the fence and won’t stop trolling me – they hate my new career, says Jodie Marsh
SURROUNDED by a bevy of swans, ponies and an attention-seeking parrot, Jodie Marsh looks a world away from her heyday as a hell-raising glamour model.
The once-hard partying socialite is thriving in her new life running an animal sanctuary, which has become so in-demand that she has now moved to a huge new plot in the depths of Essex.
Giving us a first-look at the amazing new estate, the 44-year-old reveals she has even found love through her work building up Fripps Farm, but admits not everyone is a fan.
Although many locals in the surrounding town of Great Dunmow are regular visitors, bringing their kids to come and see the animals, Jodie claims some have been shouting abuse over the fence and cruelly calling her a “sl*g”.
“There are four people in four separate houses that hate me for no reason,” she tells us. “And they’ve been trolling me.
“They’re full-on ASBO, screaming abuse, effing and blinding over the fence at me. And I don’t know why.”
Last time we visited Jodie, in May this year, she said she was the happiest she’s ever been, having seen Fripps Farm snowball since opening in 2020.
Then, at a previous site in Chelmsford, she had around 350 animals, including meerkats, sheep, emus, birds, rabbits and even a baby deer.
Since then, Fripps has also become a CIC (Community Interest Company), which is similar to having charity status, and means it is officially recognised as being a “service to the community,” and can receive donations and help with funding.
The sanctuary now has over 600 animals, including “loads and loads of ducks,” more than 20 equines, meerkats, skunks and a lot more exotics – including a noisy parrot that squawks throughout our interview.
Fripps even has a shonkey, called Ernie – a Shetland Pony-Donkey cross, which she claims was the second born in the entire world.
“It’s wonderful here,” Jodie gushes. “It is like paradise, it is like heaven on Earth. It is a proper, proper animal sanctuary.”
As well as “acres and acres of land” for her many animals to run around and play in, her new house includes a party room that’s been made to look like a Barbie-pink diner, complete with karaoke machine and pool table.
Builder boyfriend
And the man who has helped make it all happen is ‘Mark the Builder’ – Jodie’s new man.
“That’s his official title,” she laughs. “He is actually the Fripps builder, and we met because he started working here, building the animal enclosures.
“After three months of living and working together every day, and every night, building animal enclosures, it was bound to happen.
“We sort of fell into it. Well, we fell into it – and he fell into me!”
Jodie has been married twice. The first marriage to James Peacock was in 2007, and lasted just two months after the pair met on the reality show Totally Jodie Marsh: Who’ll Take Her Up the Aisle?
She was then married to James Placido for eight months in 2016, eventually splitting after she claimed he had been making “monetary demands”.
Jodie was also engaged to DJ David Doyle in 2006 after just 11 days of dating but the couple called it quits just weeks later.
But she insists she’s taking it slowly with Mark.
She adds: “We’re not announcing anything big. We’re not like, ‘We’re in love’, none of that s***. None of that getting engaged or in love with me.
“We haven’t even said the L word. And we won’t be.
“I’m an adult now, and instead of falling in love with every boyfriend I’ve ever had and getting engaged and trying to get married and all the stupid things I did in the past, no, I’m just an adult now.
“Now I’m like, I own a rescue centre, got a cool fella, he’s all right. Life’s good!”
Jodie goes on to lift the lid on how “different” Mark is to some of her exes.
She says: “I’ve had boyfriends, I kid you not, who were jealous of the love I gave my animals.
“I had one that threatened to shoot my dog once because he said ‘you love the dog more than you love me and I’m going to shoot that effing dog one day’. They were his words.
“So I said, ‘When you shoot the dog, I will literally kill you and bury you under my patio. That’s what’s gonna happen if you shoot my dog.’
“Luckily, he didn’t shoot the dog.”
Jodie continues: “Mark’s lovely. He’s different, because he gets me.
“And he’s very funny, he makes me laugh a lot – but, yeah, he just gets me, like he gets the animals come first.
“He gets that my life is the animal rescue.
“When I get a phone call at one o’clock in the morning and it’s someone saying, ‘You’ve got to go and get this injured deer from the middle of a forest and take some torches to find it 20 miles away,’ he gets that I’m going to say yes to that.”
Saving lives
Since Fripps became a CIC, Jodie is even busier saving animals’ lives, including a lot of the local wildlife, which she rehabilitates and releases back into nature.
The sanctuary was even left money in Jeff Beck’s will, when the legendary guitarist died at the beginning of this year.
“I have absolutely no idea how he’d even heard about Fripps!” says Jodie.
She is also in talks with various TV companies about filming a documentary about life on Fripps Farm – and can see it being a mixture of Clarkson’s Farm and Paul O’Grady: For The Love of Dogs.
She says: “We’re getting TV offers daily now, but if I’m going to do a TV show I’ve got to negotiate the best possible fee for the animals.
“We also need to negotiate the best possible editing scenario in terms of production company and editing, because there are some production companies and channels that will really stitch you up.
“There are some that are just lovely and want to make a good show.
“Regardless, I think a TV show on Fripps has to happen.”
There was a time when Jodie was never off our TV screens and magazine covers, falling out of every showbiz party that mattered and mingling with some of the biggest celebs in the world.
She recently slammed former ‘party pal’ Omid Scobie – who has made headlines with his book about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Endgame – and recalls many other run-ins with huge Hollywood A-listers during her heyday.
She says: “I’ve met Beyonce, Tom Cruise, the Black Eyed Peas, Robbie Williams, you name it, I’ve met them from back in the day when I was going to all the red carpet events and the premieres and all of that.”
In fact, she reveals one megastar – certainly more famous than Scobie – who she forgot she had met was Bradley Cooper, who has even “seen her naked”.
She laughs: ”I often talk about celebrities and forget that I’ve met them.
“My friends and I had a conversation about Bradley Cooper the other day; we were all sat here in a big circle talking about him and then one of my friends suddenly pipes up ‘You’ve met him, Jode, you’ve met Bradley Cooper’.
“I shared a private plane with him and I’d forgotten that I’d met him.”
“Bradley Cooper has seen me naked,” she continues, before adding with a smile: “It’s not as exciting as it sounds.
“I was wearing a jumper, on the aeroplane, with a giant, blown-up picture from one of my Zoo glamour shoots and I was stark-b*****k naked on it so, of course, he was looking at this picture of me naked.”
Thankfully for builder Mark, 2024 looks to be another year of mingling with her rescue animals, not Hollywood movie stars!