Debee Ashby was one of the most-famous glamour girls of the ’80s and ’90s. Like other British models of those decades, Debee started posing at 16 when it was legal to do so in the UK. In 2003, the age of consent to model topless or nude was bumped from 16 to 18.
Debee’s mother brought her to a glamour photo studio when Debee was 15. She eventually became a Page 3 Girl in The Sun in 1983 and posed for a slew of mens’ magazines and videos. Debee retired in 1995. One of her last shoots was a barn set for the first issue of Tease, a magazine we published for the UK market. Debee was 39 years old.
In 2003 Debee and a large number of Page 3 Girls, including Linsey Dawn McKenzie, were filmed for the TV documentary The Curse of Page 3.
Debee agreed with The Sun’s decision to end the reign of the Page 3 Girl in 2015. “Hardly a day went by when I wasn’t in the paper,” Debee told the Coventry Telegraph in 2015. “But it was in the days when Page 3 was at its height, then it became supermodels, now it is reality stars. Page 3 is out of time. It just doesn’t register anymore.”
Today, Debee has a Twitter page where she interacts with fans and posts her magazine covers and other content. She also sells content online and runs a pub and restaurant on the Isle of Man.