Jamie said the death of his mother indirectly led to his modeling career. “I’d left university, I was 19, and that summer I was just doing nothing, apart from drinking very aggressively all day in Belfast. My family were worried about me being so directionless, I think, so my sister put me up for this TV show, Model Behaviour, where you could win a modeling contract with Select and go on the cover of GQ. I was like, ‘To be a model? Fuck off!’ But she twisted my arm and I dragged my mate along. So I went begrudgingly, but that was my foot in the door, the window through which everything else followed. I didn’t win. But then I took myself to London and turned up, unsolicited, at Select’s offices and got signed.”
