Jerry Hall's wild life in Texas: Model grew up with a bull-riding champion and Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader siblings - and a pet alligator - before swapping haystacks for high fashion

As the oldest contestant on Celebrity Traitors, many assumed that Jerry Hall would be taking it easy inside the castle. 

Instead, the 70-year-old supermodel instantly cemented herself as a fan favourite, winning over viewers with her get-up-and-go attitude, hilarious one-liners and bonkers theories at the Round Table. 

Yet it's hardly surprising that Jerry knew how to hold her own, with the star and her four siblings having overcome a turbulent childhood to go on and achieve greatness. 

Jerry, and her twin sister Terry, were the youngest of five girls, growing up alongside older siblings Rosy, Cyndy and Linda in Texas, with Jerry calling her sisters her 'best friends'. 

At the start, her family were financially comfortable, with Jerry recalling being raised by nannies on their family farm near Houston. 

Yet they lost everything when her father gambled away the farm, with the family forced to relocate to Mesquite. 

The stress of losing the farm had such an impact on Jerry's father that he crashed his car into a brick wall, resulting in a six-month hospital stint. 

Jerry described her father John - a World War II veteran - as 'volatile', revealing that his untreated PTSD resulted in abusive behaviour.

She explained: 'Horrible things happened to my father. He had to release people from a prison of war camp and found 18,000 dead bodies.

'It is a terrible thing to be living in fear and he would abuse us verbally too.' 

Jerry revealed he would 'burst into rages', explaining: 'He would talk to us like soldiers. He was very imaginative in his insults and that is hard to get over.

'I'm not trying to be vindictive but he certainly gave us a hard time.

'He was very violent. He had to drive explosive chemicals across the country and took uppers (chemical stimulants) and would come home and beat us five girls. He broke bones.

'He had a terrible upbringing and his father drank and his mother died when he was a baby - you try to understand why someone became so violent.'

Conversely, she described her mother Marjorie – a medical records librarian – as being 'wonderful' with them, giving the siblings dancing and piano lessons and encouraging them to keep up with their studies. 

School was not a problem for Jerry, who graduated early from high school aged 16. 

She is rumoured to have an IQ of 146 – higher than roughly 99.9 per cent of the population and making her a candidate for Mensa. 

Yet while Jerry had a keen interest in science, she knew she wanted to be a model, having had an epiphany while high on drugs. 

She previously revealed: 'I was 14 when this guy slipped a quarter of a tab of LSD into my drink. While I tripped I was looking in the mirror and thought: "Oh my god, I'm beautiful". That's when I had the idea to go to Paris and be a model.'

Yet she was still a tomboy at heart, with Jerry explaining she loved to run around outside with her exotic pets, which included a snake, pig, racoon and alligator called Nathan. 

She said of Nathan: 'It grew to be too big and it bit me. I still have the scars. But you see, I was going to be the first person that had a glamorous alligator. I was going t have a rhinestone chain and walk it down the street. It never worked out.'

Yet while she'll forever be a 'country girl at heart', Jerry wanted to pursue her dreams of becoming a model, so a few weeks shy of her 17th birthday, Jerry decided to leave home. 

She used the $800 she received as compensation for poor hospital treatment after a car crash, to purchase a plane ticket to Paris. 

'I had this fantasy that I would become a model, and I did!' Jerry recalled. 'My mother said you have to go to the Riviera. We'd been watching To Catch a Thief, and she said, "The Riviera's the place to go". 

'I spent my last bit of money on a pink metallic crochet bikini and some high heels, walked out on the beach in Saint-Tropez, and a man came up and said, "Would you like to be a model?" How lucky is that?'

Jerry had the backing of her mother – who had been asked to be a model when she was younger but her husband wouldn't allow. 

So Jerry explained: 'She was quite keen on me becoming a model. I just went off without telling my dad. I took off to Paris and never came back, but when I became a success and started making money, he was very proud of me.'

All of Jerry's siblings had left home at this point to be away from their abusive father – but despite their turbulent upbringing – all of them went on to find success. 

Notably Jerry's eldest sister Cyndy was Girls’ Champion Bull-rider of Texas, while also working as a model, in a chemical lab, and doing makeup for movies and walk-ons in soap operas.

Meanwhile, her sister Rosy made history as one of the original seven Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. 

Her twin Terry went on to become a photographer but first flew to France to spend time with Jerry, with the pair living in the Hotel Crystal with Grace Jones. 

Jerry recalled 'We shared a room; it had twin beds on one side and a single bed on the other and was divided by a curtain.

'Grace was trying to be a model. She and I put on cabaret shows for our friends. We told her she had to be a singer. We'd go to the Club Sept, which was the happening club. 

'That's where I met Antonio Lopez, the fashion illustrator I started working with. And Helmut Newton and Salvador Dalí. I was attracted to artistic and creative types.'

The rest was history for Jerry, who went on to become one of the most sought-after models in the world and still shoots campaigns to this day. 

Jerry has now built up a brand new fanbase in her 70s, after becoming the breakout star of Celebrity Traitors. 

The supermodel was hailed an 'icon' by viewers, with many comparing her to the late Catherine O'Hara's character Moira Rose in Schitt's Creek. 

Jerry's elaborate Texan drawl and wonderfully formal turns of phrase – like announcing that she 'hath risen' – reminded viewers of Moira's grandiose vocabulary.

Other factors included her extravagant glamour and strong sense of personal style, as well as living in their own world and habitual accidental comedy.

Yet Jerry's journey was cut short halfway through the process when she was banished after the group switched up their tactics and started voting out weak Faithfuls. 

The move came as a shock to host Claudia Winkleman, who declared: ‘Players, you just banished a legend,’ as Jerry strutted out of the castle.

After her exit, Jerry said she found Celebrity Traitors ‘so much harder than the catwalk’.

‘Oh, it's so much harder than the catwalk,’ she said, adding, 'But you know, the catwalk, it's a very competitive world, and there are some ruthless people. I should have been better prepared.

‘Apparently the reason I got voted off, everyone said, was because I was an icon, which didn't sound like it was a very factual reason; I think they saw me as a threat.’