Supermodel Jean Campbell fronted a Burberry campaign aged just 16, going on to be the face of major luxury brands including Louis Vuitton, Miu Miu and Chanel. Despite her success, she privately battled genetic chronic pain, undergoing excruciating surgeries followed by intensive recovery periods during which she had to learn to walk again on numerous occasions. But as part of her long and arduous rehabilitation, with the help of mind and body experts she found a way through and transformed her life. Now, with I’m Fine, she aims to share her experience and that of others to help those navigating pain to find solutions and community.

British supermodel Jean Campbell starred in her first Burberry ad at sixteen years old. What many people don’t know is that day she arrived on set on crutches, having spent a prolonged period on bedrest followed by a month in a wheelchair before undertaking intensive hydrotherapy and physiotherapy learning to walk again.  

Jean’s journey with pain started aged 12 following an accident, leaving her in unbearable pain,  which required surgery after a complicated diagnosis. The impact of the accident had caused such a blow to her body it accelerated the deterioration of her hips, which were declining due to a genetic condition called hip dysplasia - a diagnosis she received after 2 years of constant pain in her right hip. After corrective surgery on her right hip, she began experiencing the familiar pain again but now on the other side. After a year and a half, having just recovered from the reconstructive surgery to her right side, she underwent the same series of excruciating surgeries on her left hip.  

Aged 20, after completing the surgeries and recovery process, her pain was persisting - and getting worse. After a series of scans, she was informed her that the only path forward was another four major surgeries and four minor surgeries on the tops of her legs, which would involve cutting off and readjusting the ball that fits inside the hip socket, and then cutting the tops of her legs and repositioning them. This would take a total recovery time of six years, transitioning from wheelchair, to crutches, physio, hydrotherapy and then back to surgery. 

Jean fell into a dark hole, becoming nihilistic, depressed and detached. She was without hope. But remarkably, she refused to believe that extreme surgery was the only route of progression, refuting the medical pressure to have the operations, and instead intuiting there was another way. Slowly, she began to find acceptance of her pain and the fallibility of human nature, and her depression subsided into curiosity. Growing more connected with a philosophy of what can and cannot be controlled in life, she began her slow and gradual recovery, experimenting with low impact exercise, mediation, and more with the purpose of finding a way to manage her pain.  

Today, Jean lives with pain as part of her life, but is not defined by it, and in fact has found great power in it. Channeling her experience into a fulfilling new chapter, Jean has put everything  over the past year into creating a platform that will allow her to share her experience and provide a resource for other sufferers, in the form of a soon-to-be-released interview-led podcast.