by Louise Ford
Although Jamie wasn’t normally intimidated when working opposite a big name, he couldn’t help but feel that she was in a completely different league. Jamie certainly didn’t see himself on equal footing with his famous co-star. ‘She’s an amazing model and an amazing person. Even watching her work is incredible. I’ve been mucking around doing this for seven years, she’s been doing it for eighteen and she’s still top of the game,’ Jamie gushed some years later. ‘It’s a nice compliment but I don’t reckon we’re on the same playing field,’ he commented on his nickname ‘the male Kate Moss’.
The campaign was an immediate hit with the fashion house and, once officially launched, it did more than just sell clothes. Jamie was plunged into the centre of religious controversy when it hit America. A huge billboard of the CK advert with a topless Kate grabbing a bare-chested Jamie had been erected outside a mosque. Devout Muslims were reportedly outraged by the image which confronted them every time they went in or out of their place of worship and the press had a field day. ‘It’s only a matter of time before action is taken. Someone will find a way to cover them up,’ one disgusted neighbour told a newspaper. ‘Jamie and Kate’s CK ad upsets hundreds of muslims,’ another headline screamed, while website animalnewyork.com sniped, ‘We are dying to see what a hastily spray painted burqa looks like on the young coke-sniffing crusader.’
Kate and her boyfriend Pete Doherty had been no strangers to controversy since the start of their relationship twelve months before, and Jamie soon became mixed up in gossip involving the couple, as rumours started to emerge that she had dumped the pop star for the Irish model. Jamie was adamant there was no chemistry between them, pointing out that they’d spent less than a week with each other – and that was at work. They had certainly never ‘enjoyed a string of secret dates’. ‘I’m not cool enough for Kate,’ he told the Sunday Mirror newspaper. ‘I’ve met her several times and she’s really sweet but I somehow don’t think I’m rock star enough.’
Although Jamie dismissed the gossip as ridiculous, his friends didn’t think that such a pairing was out of the question and begged him for the inside track on his secret romance. ‘My friends ring up asking why I didn’t tell them I was going out with Kate Moss?’ he said incredulously. ‘And I’m like, “I’m not! I worked with her for half a day that’s it.”
‘I honestly don’t do love affairs. That’s the most embarrassing thing about the whole situation, I never pull.’
While Jamie remained resolutely single, business was good – even though modelling was his bread-and-butter and music was where his heart was. ‘It’s a great business for now, a great way to make money and have a laugh,’ Jamie said soon after the Calvin Klein advert. ‘Who knows what’s next? I put a lot of what’s happened so far to luck and right place, right time.’
However, it was more than just his pretty face that was landing him the contracts; he also had a burgeoning fan base. Jamie’s almost naked body was adorning buses, glossy mags and girls’ bedroom walls worldwide. Whole websites and pages on the internet were cropping up devoted to the ‘Golden Torso’, as he was dubbed by the New York Times in an article which profiled his up-and-coming Marie Antoinette role.
Jamie was also mentioned in a book entitled Supermodels: 21st Century Lives, in which he was just one of nine legendary models to be listed alongside Twiggy, Kate Moss, Erin O’Connor and the first-ever male supermodel Marcus Schenkenberg, who reached the peak of his fame in the early 1990s. ‘A bit of a pretty boy, Jamie’s clean cut and athletic and likes to keep in shape playing rugby. Jamie’s not just good looking – he has plenty of Irish charm too,’ the book raved.
‘I question why all of this has happened to me,’ Jamie said at the time, ‘I don’t see myself as particularly good-looking. I could never have predicted it at all in a million years.’ But the public couldn’t have been more interested in him and his rippling abs, which even he admitted was rare for a male model. ‘You can’t take this industry seriously, especially if you are a guy,’ he declared. ‘This is definitely a girls’ industry. It all seems quite strange to me.’
In fact, devoted Dornan followers seemed just as interested in swooning at photos of his body as in learning about the most seemingly boring minutiae of his everyday life. ‘My daily routine is a ten-minute shower, a cup of coffee and then I go. I use Aveda Brilliant Shampoo and Dove soap in the shower,’ Jamie confided to the Evening Standard. As a testament to his down-to-earth nature, he also revealed in the feature that he couldn’t leave the house without an iPod and that he kept fit by ‘walking a lot. I try to walk everywhere in London and New York and I play Frisbee in the park.’
It must have seemed extraordinary to his friends and family that unassuming Jamie had become such a public fascination. Some of his schoolmates could hardly believe the escalation in his fame and regularly ribbed him by text message or called him on his phone to let him know that they’d spotted him in various sexy poses in magazines, billboards or at their bus stop.
During one interview with a British newspaper, Jamie stopped chatting to the journalist to answer a call from his flatmate who was in stitches after seeing posters of Jamie in his pants for Calvin Klein jeans. It all served to keep the millionaire model grounded. ‘He was just laughing,’ he explained. ‘That’s good I need to have that. Some people, they really want all this,’ he said of his fame-inducing modelling career.
His family, meanwhile, remained shocked and delighted in equal measure. For Jamie’s father, seeing his son’s continued success and surprise appearances in the press and on billboards must have come as a welcome distraction from his own problems and cancer diagnosis. ‘I think they’re proud, at least I hope they’re proud. I think they’re bemused at my modelling, as am I, that it happened and it’s continued to happen for quite a while,’ Jamie said of his father and stepmother’s reaction to his recent success. ‘I think they’re happy, none of their friends’ sons are doing this so I think it’s quite a weird thing for them to talk about. It’s a complete dinner party novelty.’
It was also reassuring to see that Jamie hadn’t changed a bit. It wasn’t so much that he couldn’t believe his good fortune anymore – instead, there was secretly a part of him that didn’t want to be there. There was an untapped world outside modelling that was his for the taking, if only he could land himself another acting job. That, however, was one area of his life which seemed nothing short of a disaster. Jamie was the first to admit that his good looks and rippling muscles landed him the part in Marie Antoinette; his challenge was to get directors to take him seriously as an actor rather than just as something nice to look at.
It was proving extremely difficult. Amongst the castings for modelling assignments, Jamie was being put forward for TV and film roles by his agent, but he rarely got past the first round. ‘I literally went to hundreds of auditions. I’d been auditioning for parts for years. I never got any better at it. I’m crap at auditions. I know there are people who can walk into those rooms and make those lines sing on the page and get the job immediately. I wasn’t one of them. I’m still not one of them,’ he said some years later.
On the back of his role in Marie Antoinette, his agent also sent him out to Los Angeles during pilot season – a time between January and April when TV studios cast, produce and test out new shows. Competition is fierce, and the rounds of auditions are relentless and cut-throat, as hundreds of wannabe actors try to get their feet on the first rung of the movie industry ladder. ‘It was one of the most dehumanising things anyone could ever go through – on an entertainment level, that is,’ Jamie said.
Directors and TV producers in Hollywood were at least polite, which for many made the blow easier; for Jamie, however, this just made him feel even more deflated. The Irishman often walked away from auditions quietly convinced that he’d landed the role until his agent got a call saying that he had once again been unsuccessful. ‘There’s no such thing as a bad meeting in LA. You walk out thinking that you have the job,�
� he explained. ‘I think I’ve only ever had silent “nos” out there.’
For the time being, at least, he had plenty to focus on; his busy schedule was packed with music and modelling, and the latter couldn’t have been going any better – on paper at least. ‘I’ve never felt massively satisfied from standing there while someone takes my photograph. It’s never given me a thrill,’ he confided in an interview with the Evening Standard magazine years later. ‘But it would take a very foolish man to turn down the stuff that was offered to me. You’re in your twenties and people are going to give you a silly amount of money to lean against a wall with your head down.
‘F**k me, you’ve got to do it.’
Still down to earth as ever, behind the scenes the model was enjoying an incredibly normal life. ‘I still cook spaghetti bolognese and I love a good book.
‘My perfect evening in would be with my mate Jake and my sister Jess eating tomato and mozzarella followed by my spaghetti, it’s the best in the world! For pudding we’d have cheesecake, drink Pinot Noir and watch South Park on TV,’ he said. ‘My daily grooming routine is a ten minute shower, a cup of coffee and then I go.
‘I always have a book on the go. I couldn’t live without books, I don’t understand people who don’t read.’
Defying the stereotype of a pampered supermodel, Jamie admitted that although he liked to keep fit with morning press-ups, he wasn’t into the kind of preening you’d expect. ‘I cut my hair myself. I don’t have any hair products, I use whatever is to hand.
‘I like playing golf but I’m not really into going to the gym, not when I can go for a walk outside.’
His easy-going attitude and undoubted professionalism appeared to be paying off. Select modelling agency, who had handled Jamie’s career from the start, was now seeing a steady stream of requests for the young fashion star who could now command £10,000 a day.
Next up was Nicole Farhi’s spring ad campaign in early 2007, which saw Jamie star in a series of black-and-white photos in a range of well-cut suits and tailored jackets. Jamie’s good luck followed with an advert for Aquascutum, alongside stunning supermodel Gisele Bündchen. The quintessentially English label wanted an image overhaul – from country-set staple to brand of choice for the sexy, modern go-getter – and chose ‘uber-suave’ Jamie and Gisele to play the smouldering ‘power couple’ at the centre of their new branding.
Key pieces in the collection included clothes based on original designs worn by Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Lauren and Lauren Bacall in luxurious fabrics. The shoot was at sprawling country mansion Cliveden House in Berkshire – made famous in the 1960s for the Profumo affair – with legendary photographer Mario Sorrenti at the helm. Best known for his spreads of nude models in the pages of upmarket magazines Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, the steaminess of this project was no exception, and Jamie was quickly directed into producing a set of sultry shots with the Brazilian beauty. ‘Jamie is a real pro, he can produce “sexy” in a second,’ a fashion industry insider said. ‘For the camera he oozes seduction effortlessly and at the same time makes female models feel at ease; he’s friendly, polite and a joy to be around. He’s one of the best male models around.’
The campaign was a massive success thanks to the undeniable on-camera chemistry between Jamie and Gisele. ‘We are thrilled by this new campaign,’ said Aquascutum president and CEO, Kim Winser. ‘Gisele and Jamie are the perfect pairing to communicate our creative vision for the new season.’ As the photos of the handsome pair in well-cut, luxurious outfits draped around each other and oozing sex appeal hit the internet, fans online gushed, ‘They are so hot! Yay! I love them!’ Another wrote, ‘Stylish, sexy, classy and eye-catching, Jamie looks stunning!’, while a fashion journalist commented, ‘These two look like they’re made for each other. Jamie Dornan is exquisite.’
Hot on its heels was Jamie’s new contract as the face of Bvlgari eyewear. Posing in a series of black-and-white shots wearing the famous designer glasses, Jamie again attracted reams of online attention from both men and women. ‘He’s so hot,’ one male fan drooled on a fashion website. ‘I don’t normally go for a man in specs but he’s changed my mind.’
Unsurprisingly, Aquascutum was back for more of Jamie less than a year later. ‘Last season they turned up the heat for fashion label Aquascutum on location at the quintessentially British Cliveden House and this season, Gisele Bündchen and Jamie Dornan are back to do the same for the brand,’ an article in Vogue proclaimed in July 2008. This time the pair’s photocall was to pose against the scenic backdrop of London’s St Paul’s Cathedral – and the photos wouldn’t look out of place in the new Fifty Shades of Grey movie.
‘In one shot, the woman – dressed in clinging black dress and spike-heeled Manolos – lies seductively across the man’s lap,’ a journalist said of the campaign in Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper. ‘Elsewhere, she is captured in executive-style sharp tailoring in an office overlooking St Paul’s, while he is pictured straddling an MV Agusta F4 – the “Ferrari of motorcycles”– in a chic trench.
‘Nom doms? Bankers immune to the credit squeeze? Or a power couple in the clutches of a passionate affair?’
Aquascutum’s Kim Winser added at the time, ‘I love the passionate electricity; power is such an aphrodisiac.’ Jamie was indeed a powerful presence in the studio but while he was pulling in fans with his pouts, he was having little luck pulling in real life. He was desperate for a girlfriend, but he was the first to admit that he was useless in love. ‘I really need a girlfriend,’ he admitted earnestly in 2007. ‘I can appreciate going out and having fun with whoever but there’s a real side of me that needs the relationship part.’
Jamie liked the stability that a steady girlfriend afforded and while he loved going out drinking in bars with friends, he enjoyed staying in with wholesome food and a good film on the TV just as much. Few could believe he remained a single bachelor. The press was adamant that Jamie – one of the most desirable men in the world after romancing the formidable Keira Knightley – must have been dating someone.
Within months of splitting from the Hollywood actress, the rumour mill started with stories that Jamie had his eye on other beautiful women. Whenever he starred in a campaign, the model was alleged to be having a dalliance with another new actress or model, even if the details were wildly exaggerated to make the story grittier. There had been Sienna Miller, of whom he admitted thrice-over that she was ‘just a good friend’ who lived round the corner and shared his love of good food and a gossip. A few weeks later, Jamie had supposedly ‘hooked up’ with Hollywood actress Lindsay Lohan after the pair were seen huddling together in a quiet corner of a Calvin Klein-sponsored bash in New York to celebrate Kate Moss’s new advertising campaign. They were later allegedly seen holding hands, which sparked rumours of a string of dates in the American city.
Dornan later denied even having met her. ‘I know who she is, I’ve seen her movie Mean Girls but that’s it. There’s no Mrs Jamie at all,’ he said at the time. Despite his denial, Jamie made it into Lindsay’s ‘sex list’which she allegedly penned in 2013 on a boozy night out with friends. The actress was said to have scribbled down a list of thirty-six famous men that she had bedded since becoming famous and the countdown of her best-known lovers included Jamie. A source who claimed to have watched her write the document during a booze-fuelled session at the exclusive Beverley Hills Hotel, said, ‘It was her personal conquest list. She was trying to impress her friends with the list and then tossed it aside.’
Whether there was any truth in it or not, within weeks of reportedly dating the blonde actress, Jamie was onto another woman. This time, he had struck up a close friendship with Footballers’ Wives beauty Lucia Giannecchini, after meeting through friends. ‘She’s trying to keep her blossoming friendship with Dornan top secret,’ a source told the Sunday Mirror newspaper in an article about the actress’s new love interest.
Next up, the rumours that he was romancing Kate Moss surfaced again and
due to the ongoing speculation, even years later, that they had been an item, Dornan felt compelled to comment on it whenever he gave an interview. ‘I think it’s quite hard to meet someone special in London,’ he explained. ‘There’s a whole pool of attractive women in London but I find it intimidating. London is so vast so it makes it hard to know where the nice ones are or what kind of people they are going to be. It was a lot easier when I was at school and you knew everyone you pulled.
‘I never dated Kate Moss.’
There was also the added problem that people had started to comment on how well he passed for straight, thus insinuating that he wasn’t interested in women at all. ‘The amount of people who think I’m gay is astounding,’ he added. Nevertheless, girls were certainly flocking to him, even if he didn’t quite know how to handle it.
At the V Festival in 2006, glamour girls Alicia Duvall, Caprice and Jodie Marsh allegedly begged the organisers to introduce them to the up-and-coming star, while the then single popstar Lily Allen also made a beeline for him before swapping mobile numbers so that they could meet at a later date. ‘Lily rushed over to Jamie who was sitting with a couple of friends. She introduced herself and started nattering away to him,’ an onlooker said of the chart-topping daughter of comic Keith Allen. ‘He seemed taken aback at first but soon they were getting on like a house on fire. They had a couple of beers together and then got out their mobiles and typed in each other’s numbers.’
Even if a long-term romance wasn’t on the cards, he was certainly enjoying some one-night flings and his playboy reputation was now at full throttle. The Calvin Klein hunk was spotted kissing Australian model Gemma Ward in the Louis Vuitton VIP room at London’s trendy Movida Club a few months later, before chatting up her supermodel pal Lily Donaldson. Meals out with stunning brunette model Lily Aldridge also followed. Even though he wasn’t actually dating her – she is supermodel Saffron Aldridge’s half-sister and her best friend is singer Taylor Swift – it was quite clear Jamie was now circulating with the cream of London’s society girls.