Who Is Christine Keeler? British Model At Heart Of Profumo Scandal Dies

Christine Keeler, the model at the center of the Profumo affair that caught the entire Britain’s attention during the 1960s, died late Monday, her son announced. She was 75.

“I wish to share some sad news. My mother, the grandmother of my beautiful little girl, passed away late last night. She suffered in the last few years with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease but lost the fight,” Keeler’s son Seymour Platt wrote on Facebook alongside her photograph.

Platt said Keeler died Monday at the Princess Royal University Hospital in Farnborough, England.

“As many of you know my mother, Christine Keeler, fought many fights in her eventful life, some fights she lost but some she won. She earned her place in British history but at a huge personal price,” her son wrote. “We are all very proud of who she was.”

Speaking of his mother, Platt, who stays with his family in Ireland, said: “There was a lot of good around Chris’s rather tragic life because there was a family around her that loved her. I think what happened to her back in the day was quite damaging.”

Keeler, during her time, was said to be in a relationship with British war secretary John Profumo, leading to the infamous political scandal of the 1960s.

Keeler’s scandal or the Profumo Affair, as it was widely known, originated with a sexual relationship between John Profumo, Secretary of State for War in Harold Macmillan's Conservative government, and the then 19-year-old Christine Keeler, a would-be model. Profumo, who at first denied the relationship with Keeler, admitted the truth a few weeks later. Following his acceptance, he resigned from the government. Profumo’s actions left a huge impact on Macmillan’s image and self-confidence, forcing him to offer resignation as the prime minister on health grounds in October 1963. Macmillan’s Conservative Party became associated with the scandal ever since.

According to a Washington Post report, Keeler was often described as “the call girl” — something she denied all her life. She was said to be the reason for the fall of Britain’s ruling government at the time.

Profumo and Keeler were said to have met in 1961. He was 46 at the time and Keeler 19. Reports claimed Keeler was dating Profumo as well as a few other men including Yevgeny Ivanov, an alleged Soviet spy, at the same time. Keeler, who was having an affair with Ivanov, was also accused of being a spy in disguise and meddling with state secrets.

Keeler was born in Uxbridge, Middlesex. Her father abandoned her family during the World War II and she was brought up by her mother Julie Payne and stepfather Edward Huish. Keeler worked as a cabaret dancer in Soho, London, when she met Stephen Ward — an English osteopath and artist who took her to a party that had VIPs and aristocrats. It is there she is said to have met Profumo and Ivanov, with whom she had relationships.