Model, actor and writer Keeley Hazell has spoken out about losing the Ted Lasso role, which was said to be inspired by her, to Juno Temple. In the 2000s, Hazell had been a regular fixture on The Sun’s Page 3 column, a now-extinct segment that had featured topless women between 1970 and 2015. During that period, the 39-year-old also appeared on the cover of FHM, Loaded, and Maxim.
In 2007, she sold 30,000 copies of her calendar. After an ex-boyfriend sold a sex tape of theirs to The Sport newspaper, Hazell pivoted in her career and moved to Los Angeles where she enrolled in acting classes and earned minor roles in films such as Horrible Bosses (2011) and Like Crazy (2016). It was around this time that, she said, actor and writer Jason Sudeikis, with whom she had worked on Horrible Bosses, asked to meet to discuss a part that he had written for her in his new TV show Ted Lasso.
Like Hazell, the character in question was a former glamour model with ambitions to establish herself as a marketing executive. The character would also share her name: Keeley. In the end, however, Hazell did not land the part, which ultimately went to the actor Juno Temple.
Asked whether it was “galling” to see someone else play a character based on herself, Hazell told The i newspaper: “It’s a complete mindf***, especially as the show rendered immense amounts of success for the actress that plays Keeley – it changed her life.” Temple has been nominated for three Emmys, as part of the show’s wider success. Since airing its first season in 2020, Ted Lasso has been nominated for 61 Emmys and won 13. New subscribers only. £9.99/mo. after free trial.
Plan auto-renews until cancelled. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent. In addition to portraying Bex, Hazell also works as a staff writer on the series.
Elsewhere in the interview, Hazell reflected on her time working as a very successful glamour model, a profession she got into after winning The Sun’s search for a new Page 3 model. The Apple TV show achieved a record-breaking premiere with 296.6 million US viewing minutes. That said, the new season – which follows Sudeikis’s amiable football coach taking on women’s football this time around – left critics wanting more.
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