CBeebies star stuns fans with ageless appearance – 14 years after causing uproar by posing topless
A FORMER CBeebies presenter who has ‘barely aged a day’ has showed off her ageless beauty – over a decade after being cruelly sacked.
Sarah-Jane Honeywell was well known to a whole generation of youngsters, fronting shows such as Tikkabilla, Higgeldy House alongside Justin Fletcher and Zing Zillas.
Fans took to her Instagram comments to share their thoughts. One wrote: “You never age.”
Another penned: “Oh my goodness, wow the original Sarah-Jane has returned. It’s like I’m looking at the Tikkabilla era of yourself. I absolutely love it.”
A third added: “You are still looking fantastic.” “Very nice, Sarah-Jane. Gorgeous,” wrote another.
In 2001, near-naked photos of the children’s TV host saw her hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
The former CBeebies host from Nottingham posed topless, lying on a giant plate of food in London’s Trafalgar Square, for a now infamous Peta advert.
Additional shots of her in a skimpy vest pouring Diet Coke over her chest soon ended her kids’ TV career.
“After that, all the doors were slammed in my face,” Sarah-Jane told Fabulous in 2023.
“I couldn’t get any auditions because people didn’t take me seriously and just passed me off as a children’s TV weirdo. Financially it was an absolute disaster.”
Sarah-Jane’s personal life began to spiral. She was left homeless, suicidal, in £100k worth of debt and estranged from her former pal, Mr Tumble aka Justin Fletcher.
Sarah-Jane, who now has two children, Indiana and Phoenix, with her Hollyoaks actor husband Ayden Callaghan, said: “We lost everything. As a result we were forced to live in the garage of my parents’ home for three years.
“As well as losing my job at CBeebies, I had also been through a breakup and it left my financial situation in ruins.
“Ayden and I both worked really hard all our lives, and then we suddenly found ourselves living in this tiny space with two children.”
She continued: “The BBC was asked to comment on the pictures, and they simply said I no longer worked for them. That was how I found out.
“There was never a phone call or a single conversation with my bosses – despite me having worked there for 10 years. I was completely devastated that the career I loved was over.”
Sarah-Jane is now back on her feet with a stable job at BBC Radio Lincolnshire where she presents the Sunday afternoon show, as well as running her own drama school Curious Theatre.
She has since starred in London’s West End in musical Cats, worked as an acrobat and appeared as a puppeteer on the 2019 Netflix series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.