Little Miss Posh's jolly unlikely love affair: She's related to Queen Victoria. He's a market trader's son. M&S model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Jason Statham get engaged despite 20-year age gap

With his gravelly, South London tones and her cut-glass vowels, movie action hero Jason Statham and model-turned-actress Rosie Huntington-Whiteley are the epitome of the odd couple. 

Think Desperate Dan meets Helen of Troy. 

As they announce their engagement (sealed with a £250,000 diamond ring), RICHARD PRICE finds out all there is to know about a love affair that reveals so much about social class today . . .

Jason Stratham, right, and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, left, are like Desperate Dan meets Helen of Troy

FAMILY FORTUNES

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, 28, is far from just a double-barrelled parvenu. Her father, Charles, is a chartered surveyor and her stylish mother, Fiona, worked as a fitness instructor while bringing up her three children on a sprawling Devon farm.

Little is known about Fiona’s side of the family, but Rosie’s father is descended from a line of baronets with royal connections. His great-grandfather, Sir Herbert Huntington-Whiteley, a Conservative MP, was made a baronet in 1918.

Sir Herbert had two sons — Maurice, his heir, and Eric, Rosie’s great-grandfather. Maurice ascended the social ladder when he married Margaret Baldwin, the daughter of prime minister Stanley Baldwin, and their son, John, wed Queen Victoria’s great-great granddaughter.

Jason’s rather different family history can be told in fewer words. The 48-year-old is the son of Barry Statham, a market stall trader and lounge singer, and his wife Eileen, a dancer.

TO THE MANOR BORN

Small wonder that Rosie’s friends jokingly refer to Jason as her ‘bit of rough’. Born in the working-class ex-mining community of Shirebrook, Derbyshire, Jason had a peripatetic childhood flitting between there, Norfolk and South London.

The one constant was a need to duck and dive for money. As a child, Jason would switch between playing drums in working men’s clubs with the family band and supporting his dad in ‘mock auctions’, which consisted of persuading the public to pay inflated prices for end-of-the-line goods.

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, 28, is far from just a double-barrelled parvenu. Jason is a market trader's son

A glance at Jason’s lookalike father — every bit as granite-jawed as his action-hero son — reveals how the family was able to make a living in these hostile environments.

As Jason memorably put it to chat show host Jay Leno: ‘They weren’t exactly playing croquet and quaffing champagne at weekends. It’s pretty tough down there.’

By contrast, Rosie’s upbringing in rural Devon was as sheltered as they come. They may not have been swimming in money, but the Huntington-Whiteleys very much come from the sector of society which does not buy furniture — they inherit it.

Weekends were spent helping out on the family farm near Tavistock, and Rosie’s memories are of horses, skiing holidays and big family gatherings around a roaring fire.

RELATIVE VALUES

Neither Jason or Rosie have had stellar academic careers 

As befits the progeny of aristocrats, Rosie’s younger siblings, Florence, 22, and Toby, 25, have taken their time over choosing careers.

Toby, who has a killer combination of his sister’s pouting features and his future brother-in-law’s chiselled abdominal muscles, is a rising male model who also works as an elite fitness trainer for Nike.

The youngest Huntington-Whiteley is a skiing fanatic who styles herself ‘Disco Flo’ and runs a website, Snowhoes, dedicated to ‘all things rad in women’s action sports’ (to use her own youthful phrasing).

Jason’s older brother, Lee, has had no such luxury. However, he has carved out a living playing the guitar — a skill he learned at an early age while performing in and around Norfolk with his parents’ band.

When not visiting Jason and Rosie in LA, he is based in Great Yarmouth, where he operates as a guitar-for-hire at weddings and private functions.

He may not have Jason’s millions, but in stark contrast to his balding little brother, he does, at least, boast a full head of hair.

SCHOOL REPORT

Neither of the couple can lay claim to a stellar academic career.

Rosie’s attempts at the 11-plus exam were unsuccessful and she ended up attending the local comprehensive, Tavistock College. She was, however, a highly popular student and — contrary to the usual model’s ‘ugly duckling’ claims — universally admired by male classmates.

Bullied by some for her double-barrelled name, she also had to endure endless teasing over the fact that, at the time, she had big lips and a flat chest.

It can’t have been all bad, however, as prescient fellow pupils also voted her ‘most likely to become a supermodel’.

Jason, by contrast, did excel in some areas of education — he earned a place at Great Yarmouth Grammar School, where he shone on the football pitch and in the swimming pool.

Any aspirations to university were jettisoned when he moved to South-East London in his late teens to seek fame and fortune, making ends meet by working on street stalls and as a struggling fitness model.

It was here on the mean streets of the capital that he developed the hard-man accent that is his trademark in action films.

BIG BREAKS

For Rosie and Jason, the quest for fame was a very different experience. Jason spent years honing his physique and exploring new career paths.

He trained as a member of the British diving team in the late Eighites (he competed in the 1990 Commonwealth Games and finished 12th in platform diving in the 1992 World Championships), before moving into fitness modelling.

Early aspirations to be a stuntman soon drifted towards acting, with Jason appearing in a few music videos before being snapped up by Guy Ritchie to play the lead role in hit gangster flick Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels.

Even at school, Rosie had her pick of the boys while Jason was romantically linked to Kelly Brook 

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He had finally found his milieu, and a sequence of ever more successful action roles followed.

The fragrant Rosie, meanwhile, faced no such struggle for acclaim. She did not even make it to the end of her school years before being snapped up by a leading modelling agency.

Spotted while doing work experience at Profile models, she shot a Levi’s Jeans commercial at 16 and made her catwalk debut alongside Naomi Campbell the following year.

At 19, she was signed up by the U.S.-based lingerie firm Victoria’s Secret, securing her global fame.

Since then, Rosie has been the face of M&S, launched her own lingerie line for the store and appeared in two big budget movies, Transformers and Mad Max. Her performances were widely panned, but who cares? She looked great.

OLD FLAMES

Even at school, Rosie had her pick of the boys. In 2001, Tavistock College was abuzz with the news that she was going out with the leader of the local ‘in crowd’, Kyle Hunn, a boy two years above her at school.

On arriving in London to work as a model, she soon secured the affections of Tyrone Wood, son of Ronnie Wood (of Rolling Stones fame). When their relationship fizzled out, she had a brief fling with Hollywood star (and ex-fiancé of Kylie Minogue) Olivier Martinez before settling down with Jason.

Not that Jason had been monastically biding his time before Rosie came along.

Rosie's acting talents have been panned, but Jason has also had some rather unkind reviews 

During his days as an international diver, he boasts of ‘jumping into bed with Russian girls’. Once his career took off, he was spoilt for choice — and he clearly has a type, since he dated a series of models best known for posing in their smalls.

The one that got away, however, was Kelly Brook, the pneumatically blessed lads’ mag favourite who shared his life for seven years.

The couple are said to have bonded over their working-class backgrounds, but their long-distance relationship foundered in the end.

MUSIC IS THE FOOD OF LOVE

Rosie's acting talents may have been panned, but Jason — no stranger to unkind reviews himself — saw enough talent to invite her as his date to the Coachella music festival in California in 2010. This was their first public outing as a couple and was pounced on by the paparazzi, who have been following them ever since.

Rosie, a newcomer to America’s West Coast scene, was soon head over heels in love with Jason, who helped her negotiate the choppy waters of the movie business.

They had a brief wobble two years ago, reportedly over his reluctance to propose, when Rosie went on an extended holiday to Ibiza with a group of girlfriends.

Judging by the massive diamond on her finger now, it seems he has more than made up for that.

FAMOUS FRIENDS

Nothing says more about social class than the company one chooses to keep, and Jason and Rosie are no exception.

Jason favours the company of former footballer Vinnie Jones, best known for grabbing Paul Gascoigne by the unmentionables while playing for Wimbledon. Vinnie and Jason have known each other since their youth and to this day play football together for amateur side Hollywood FC United.

Having each made a fortune out of portraying caricatured English villains — they starred together in Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels — no wonder they understand each other so well.

Rosie, on the other hand, prefers a gentler set, hence her firm friendship with model and socialite Poppy Delevingne, the epitome of upper-class beauty.

The older sister of British uber-model Cara, Poppy befriended Rosie during her affair with Tyrone Wood, and they have remained close ever since.

Perhaps with an eye on the bottom line, Rosie has also branched out into friendships with American showbusiness royalty, regularly posing alongside the Kardashians, reality TV star Gigi Hadid and a host of other famous young stars. As any modern aristocrat will tell you, snobbery does not pay the bills.

Jason and Rosie have just bought a new house in Beverly Hills for £8.5 million 

HOT PROPERTY

Having grown up in a series of cottages and terrace homes, Jason has made it his business to buy and sell property at every opportunity to secure the best deal.

A series of homes in London and Los Angeles have been traded up. Most recently he sold his home in the Hollywood Hills for £6.5 million (£150,000 above the asking price) for a bigger place in Beverly Hills, joint owned with Rosie, at a cool £8.5 million.

Jason has also collected a fleet of gleaming supercars. With a collection including a Ferrari F12 Berlinetta, Audi R8, Aston Martin DBS Volante, Lamborghini Murcielago and a vintage E-Type Jaguar, he has built up a nest egg worth easily in excess of £1 million and rising.

Nothing so ostentatious for well-brought up Rosie. When she sold her one-bedroom apartment in New York’s Greenwich Village a couple of years ago it was for a meagre £650,000. And rather than a host of fast cars, she prefers a chauffeur-driven limousine or her discreet black Audi S5.

...and RELAX

in his free time, Jason likes nothing better than working out. Ever since his teens, he has been obsessed with building the perfect physique and exercises for two solid hours, six days a week.

At weekends he plays football with his mates — a collection of ex-pat Brits — but in his older years he has come to dismiss his past passion for high diving as ‘a silly hobby’.

Rosie has always enjoyed a more laid-back approach to life. Besides walking Dolly and Peggy, her beloved dachshunds, and a surprising passion for flower arranging, she has described her principal teenage hobby as being ‘a massive flirt’. How well it has served her.

MONEY MATTERS

Your attitude to money says an awful lot about your social class — and in this sense Jason and Rosie fit perfectly into their allotted roles.

While he loves nothing more than to show off his cash (witness the bright orange Lamborghini), Rosie is in the luxurious position where her status symbol accessories (handbags and designer clothes) are sent to her for free.

A good job, too, for although her personal net worth is £3.5 million, she is worth only a fraction of her older, gaudier, fiancé.

Through a combination of canny investments and an explosion in his earning potential since he graduated to big-budget action movies alongside the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Jason is estimated to be worth up to ten times as much as Rosie, with between £30-£35million in the bank.

Which goes to prove that while you cannot buy class, it is possible to marry it.

THEIR BIG SECRET 

So how does this unlikely couple sum up the secret to their happiness?

He says: ‘We get drunk and float around the swimming pool.’

She says: ‘We’re best mates. He makes me laugh every day. I almost feel like I never had a proper boyfriend before.’