A former model has revealed how moving off grid and becoming a forester helped her manage her bipolar disorder and sex addiction on last night’s Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild.
Nathalie Petronelli-Stone lives near Chatton with her partner of 21 years Kezz, 43, a former professional musician who played with some of the world’s biggest names, but grew tired of the lifestyle when he turned 30.
The pair moved to Northumberland eight years ago and run a sustainable woodland management business from their home, which they built almost entirely by themselves from 450 straw bales, wood from the forest, and repurposed material at a cost of £25,000.
Nathalie, whose model booking website says she’s 36, told the Channel 5 programme, that she struggled with mental health issues for years before being recently diagnosed with Bipolar 1 and hypersexuality disorders.
Bipolar 1 is defined by manic depression, while the NHS defines hypersexuality as a very strong libido and uncontrollable or increased sexual urges.
She explained that moving to the countryside where they live on 20 acres of land, and taking up exercise has helped her deal better with her mental health issues.
Nathalie Petronelli-Stone lives near Chatton with her partner of 21 years Kezz, 43, a former professional musician who played with some of the world’s biggest names but grew tired of the lifestyle when he turned 30
The couple built their solar-powered home right by the forest, heated by burning their own wood, and collect water from a nearby bore, as well as using rainwater as a backup.
Natalie told Ben she dropped out of school before her GCSEs because she did not like the academic structure, and tried her hand at several jobs throughout her life.
She said she worked as a catwalk and photographic model, a chimney sweep, a waitress, and on a factory floor, as well as being exotic dancer before she turned to forestry.
In spite of having posed for the camera and danced in front of a crowd for a living, Nathalie revealed she hates being in front of a lens.
Nathalie has held several jobs throughout her life, including sweeping chimneys, waitressing, lap dancing, care home worker and modelling. She is now a forester
Nathalie opened up to Ben Fogle, right, how living close to nature has helped her manage her Bipolar 1 disorder and her sex addiction
She said she is at her happiest living in nature and took up exercise age 30 to help with her mental health.
She also opened up to Ben about her mental health diagnosis, which she had only just found out about before the show was filmed in Spring 2021.
‘I didn’t realise that I had a problem at the time. I thought that was normal to feel the way I did, but it turns out I had mental health problem,’ she told Ben.
‘One point it got really, really bad I tried to get help from the doctor.’
That’s when she was told she suffered from Bipolar 1 and hypersexuality.
The former model said she is glad to have been diagnosed because it means she can manage her condition better
Nathalie revealed she has turned to sexual art in order to cope with her sex addiction, and said living by nature has been a ‘massive help’
‘Bipolar 1 is manic depression. There is manic bebaviour and massive periods of depression, I spent one year, nearly the whole year in bed,’ she told Ben.
She said Kezz would try to get her to leave the bed but she’d reply she couldn’t move.
‘Hypersexuality, it’s a total loss of control and heightened sexuality.’
Nathalie said that in her case, it feels like her sexuality ‘boils.’
She said understanding she has an issue has been a relief because she can learn manage it.
‘I thought I was just an a****** for year and turns out I had a problem,’ she told Ben.
On top of woodland management, the couple make their own charcoal using traditional methods
‘Modelling was the beginning of my self expression, I started lap dancing, I can’t remember why I started it, but it became a way of expressing myself,’ she said.
‘I did sexual art, videos, which helped, it was like a release, I think, more than anything,’ she added.
Nathalie also told Ben how living close to nature has helped her cope with her bipolar disorder.
‘I don’t like being on my own at all but when you’re in nature, on your own, you can absorb it more and you do relax and it does really help,’ she said.
She added Kezz has been a great support, and said: ‘I wouldn’t have done anything without him.
Speaking to Ben, Kezz said he wholeheartedly supports Nathalie and the way she deals with her mental heath.
‘As long as she is happy, she can do what she likes. Happy and safe,’ he said.
‘She came home one day and she said “I got a job as a lap dancer, I think it might help”. Okay, sure, why not.
‘And she was absolutely fine. Sometimes it was hard for her, sometimes it totally empowered her.
‘It seemed to help her. She was perfectly safe. I knew every bouncer in town, nothing was going to happen to her in the clubs,’ he added.
He admitted he knows Nathalie has recorded some sexual videos as well.
‘The videos, that was a bit different. I didn’t really understand,’ he said, adding he has not watched them.
‘It’s perfectly normal behaviour but nobody wants to admit they partake in it,’ he said.
‘She was brave, she never made any secret about it. She didn’t pretend to be anything she wasn’t,’ he went on.
Rose’s mother Nathalie revealed she was told by her daughter’s school attendance officer that she was ‘unteachable’ when she was a teen.
Ben was intrigued by Nathalie’s story and wanted to learn how she coped with her mental health
‘It wasn’t doing her any good. She obviously was very unhappy. The way she was dressing, the way she was behaving, was a cry for help,’ Rose said.
‘At the time, mental health wasn’t really discussed, especially in young people,’ she added, saying: ‘Bipolar syndrome starts between 15 and 19 years. She thinks herself that it started then.’
Rose admitted she mistook Nathalie’s bipolarity for adolescent acting out.
‘She was always very much an individual anyways. She never followed the crowd, she did was she wanted it. In a way I love her for it,’ she told Ben.
‘She was very quirky, quite eccentric at times, but always creative and always loving towards us.’
She told Ben the diagnosis has been a relief for Nathalie ‘to know why things had been how they were.’
She agreed nature has been a great help for her daughter as well.
Kezz, left, told Ben he is supportive of the way Nathalie has dealt with her hypersexuality and bipolar diagnosis
The presenter was impressed with the couple’s story. He stayed in a ship contained the couple turned into a cabin
‘Nature is a therapy for her. I don’t think she could be anywhere else,’ she said.
She told Ben she is proud of Nathalie, saying: ‘She’s a one off, but she’s my one off.’
Kezz, who is the son of folk musician Jed Stone, worked as a professional musician in his 20s and said he also enjoys life by the woods.
He told Ben how the rock and roll lifestyle became too much for him, and that lots of the people he knew back then have since died, some because of drugs.
In 2008, aged 30, he quit the music world for good.
‘The lifestyle is kind of full on. My friends and family were getting worried,’ he told Ben, admitting he also used to indulge in drugs during his musical career.
‘I turned 30, that was it, I thought, “I’ve had a pretty good time at this and I’m still young enough and fit enough and I could just try something else”,’ he told Ben.
‘Nathalie was sweeping chimneys. There is not much she won’t have a go at and in the end, we found this thing. So we borrowed an axe and went straight into the woods.
‘Kezz has had quite a life, Ben told the camera. ‘He’s too modest to say but he’s been playing in front of ten of thousands of people.’
Now, the couple look after various woodlands in Northumberland, including the 20 acres where they live, and have built their straw bale house after Nathalie drew it on a pack of cigarettes when the couple arrived eight years ago.
They also turned a shipping containers into a cabin, and Ben got to stay there during his visit.
Viewers appreciated the couple’s honesty and how they navigated Nathalie’s diagnosis.
Viewers appreciated the candid way in which Kezz and Nathalie talked about their issues, but others found them ‘strange’
‘I actually like this couple, they clearly have a past and they seem to be making the best of the present, good luck to them,’ one viewer said.
New Lives In The Wild is so much more than looking at the eccentric. Tonight’s show is phenomenal and challenging the stereotypical views on how people live and cope. Epic viewing,’ another said.
‘Am I the only one who really like the couple. I think they’ve had a crazy past and have gone through stuff I just find them quirky and amazing to watch. I think they’re are perfect for each other,’ one said.
Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild airs on Tuesdays at 9pm.
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