For years, Fiona Bruce has been a familiar face on our television screens, hosting popular shows like Antiques Roadshow and Question Time. Her journey with the BBC began back in 1989 as a researcher for Panorama, eventually making history as the first female newsreader on BBC News at Ten. However, before her esteemed broadcasting career, Bruce had a surprisingly different start.

In her early days, Fiona Bruce ventured into the world of modeling. As a student at Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham College, she sought employment and found herself featured in the teenage magazine Jackie. Bruce appeared in the Photo Love section, a comic-strip style series that portrayed typical teenage dilemmas, with black and white images of her alongside other models and speech bubbles.

At just 15, Bruce landed this job and recalled, “I was looking for a Saturday job because my mum told me to get active. Earning £3 an hour felt like a fortune back then.”

Today, her earnings at the BBC are a world apart, ranging from £410,000 to £414,999 annually.

During her modeling stint, Bruce would often enlist schoolboys she was fond of to join her in the magazine photoshoots, cheekily admitting she chose male roles for those she “wanted to snog.” However, she often had to bend her knees for the pictures, due to her being taller than most of her male co-stars.

Fiona told The Guardian that looks also played a part in her getting a job as a newsreader, admitting: “What I actually think is you can’t look like the back end of a bus, and you do have to scrub up quite well.

“But do you have to be a beauty? No. Do you have to pay more attention to your appearance than the blokes do? Yes. If you look like the back end of the bus, as a woman you won’t get the job. If you look like the back end of a bus as a bloke, you might get the job.”