Jess and Mark Wright reveal each other’s best qualities and most annoying habits
The famous brother and sister duo are quizzed on fame and family.
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Your support makes all the difference.The eldest of four siblings, Jess and Mark Wright shot to fame in 2010 as two of the original cast members on phenomenally popular reality The Only Way Is Essex.
After departing the show the following year, Mark, 34, who married actor Michelle Keegan in 2015, became a TV and radio presenter and this year launched the Train Wright fitness app with brother Josh 31.
Older sister Jess, 36 – who earlier this month married fiancé and business partner William Lee-Kemp in Ibiza – left Towie in 2016, has also dabbled in presenting and co-hosts the Girls #NoFilter podcast.
Often posting heartfelt messages to each other on social media, it’s clear the pair are very close (as they are with Josh and youngest sister Natalya 21), so who better to play a game of ‘sibling tag’?
We quizzed the former Towie stars about their best and worst habits, what they were like as children and whether they always knew they’d be famous…
What is the best thing about your sibling?
Mark: “I’m not sure what she’ll say about me. I drive her mad. The best thing about my sibling is that she’s a good-timer. If we’re at a party [and] I’m thinking I’m just going to have a quiet one, she’ll be like, ‘Oh come on, you only live once, what’s the matter with you?’ and she always changes my mind if I’m feeling in a boring mood.”
Jess: “The best thing about him is that he can always make the best of a bad situation.”
What’s their most annoying habit?
Jess: “Oh god, there’s millions. He is really bossy.”
Mark: “Her most annoying habit is taking things seriously when I wind her up. She’s known me for 34 years now and I’m the biggest tease and wind-up there is. If I wind her up and say something, or put her down as a joke, she still takes it too seriously.”
Did you have any sibling rivalry when you were younger?
Jess: “I’m sure we did as kids but now we don’t. We’ve got different strengths, so it’s nice because some things that he can’t do I can, and vice versa. But our family is so competitive, so on the volleyball court or something there’ll be, like, the biggest competition.”
Mark: “Whenever we play games it always gets competitive. When I was in Jamaica with her last year for my birthday and we were playing volleyball, and it was my dad, my mum, me and Michelle versus Jess, her fiancé, my little sister Natalya and her boyfriend Tommy. We played volleyball everyday and it was scored over the week and we were seriously competitive.”
What’s the naughtiest thing they did as a child?
Mark: “I think she painted my mum’s dress green, and there was paint everywhere. I’m 99% sure that’s right. She wasn’t very naughty Jess, that’s the only one I can think of, but I bet she’ll have a million to say about me… I bet her words are, ‘Oh my god, where do I start?’”
Jess: “He drove the milkman’s van when the milkman got out to deliver milk. He was about five and he got in the front and started driving it and crashed into our front drive. He was so in trouble but I mean he literally was tiny.”
Did you guys get along when you were children?
Mark: “We got along but we also fought a lot as well, because we were so close in age. I used to tease her all the time.”
Jess: “We did get on but then as we got older, we always clashed. But then, I mean, all siblings do, don’t they, when they’re young teenagers?”
What is one thing that your sibling can’t live without?
Jess: “Fitness. He’s a fitness fanatic.”
Mark: “A glass of wine. Or a glass of prosecco. One of the two.”
Did you guys imagine you’d be famous when you grew up?
Jess: “No, I don’t think so. I mean I always wanted to be a singer, so I was always trying to go down that road. He wanted to be a footballer.”
Mark: “I want to say no, because that’s the humble thing to say, but I was playing for Arsenal and Tottenham growing up and she was singing and dancing and stuff, so it was definitely kind of in our thoughts. So yes, although we knew it was a long shot… I don’t think famous is the word, but I just think I was going to be a footballer and she’s thought she was gonna be somewhere in the entertainment space, so I suppose yeah in that sense. But we didn’t use the words, ‘We’re gonna be famous’.
The Train Wright App is available to download via the App Store and Google Play. Visit thisistrainwright.com