Gardeners' World presenter Monty Don has been a beloved figure on British television for decades, but his path to fame began with an unexpected topless photo shoot for Elle Magazine in the 1980s.
Monty Don Reflects on His Unlikely Rise to Stardom
The 70-year-old gardening expert, who has hosted Gardeners' World for many years, recently opened up about his early career. He admitted that being a young man passionate about gardening was considered highly unusual at the time. However, it wasn't his horticultural skills that first caught the public's eye, but rather the home he shared with his wife Sarah, his partner of over 40 years.
Speaking on the 'Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?' podcast, Monty recalled: "A magazine called Elle, which was really big in the eighties, a sort of lifestyle/fashion thing, came and did an article about our home. Sarah and Monty Don's lovely home, you know, that type of thing."
He continued: "They looked out the window and said, 'Wow! Look at your garden, who did you get to do that?'. I thought, that's fighting talk. I said, 'we did it, it's our garden, planted every single thing, of course we did'."
Impressed by his garden, the Elle team asked to photograph Monty in the garden. He confessed: "So they said, 'Well, can we photograph it?', which they did. And I'm ashamed to say, in it, I'm topless. I genuinely can't imagine why."
He added: "It's out there folks, you can find it. And then a newspaper picked it up and thing was, in the 80s, if you were a gardener in your twenties, it was like being in the British ice hockey team or you found out that a premier league footballer was mad about crocheting. Something like that, it was really very unusual, and they wrote about the garden."
Following the Elle feature, other mainstream outlets, including national newspapers, became intrigued by Monty and his horticultural talents. One publication eventually approached him to write gardening content. Monty explained: "Then the Mail On Sunday asked if I would like to write about gardens for them and I did and then they gave me a column and then one thing led to another and I got a book off the back of that column."
Monty Don on Retirement and Work Addiction
In recent years, discussions have emerged about what Monty's future might hold if he chooses to step back from work, though he remains incredibly active. Speaking to Saga last year, he revealed: "I genuinely don't know what retirement would look like. I don't play golf or tennis, and I can't see myself doing the crossword all day."
He added: "Whenever I say to Sarah, 'Well, thank God, I have no addictions,' she rolls her eyes and says, 'You are completely addicted to work!' But there comes a point in life when saying no is the least interesting option. And in reality, I like work."
