Scott Brown, dark horse Republican candidate, managed a major upset yesterday when he won late senator Edward Kennedy's 'safe' seat in Massachusetts.
The surprise victory puts President Obama's health care reforms at risk. Here are a few interesting facts about the former nude model.
# Cosmopolitan named him America's Sexiest
Man when he was a 22-year-old law student. He posed naked as the centrefold in the June 1982 issue.
# He has been married to WCVB-TV Channel 5 reporter Gail Huff for 23 years. Both Brown and Huff were once models and actors.
# They have two daughters: Arianna, the youngest, is an equestrian and a student at New York's Sycaruse University. Ayla was a semi-finalist on season five (2006) of American Idol where she placed in the top 16. She released her debut album later that year. She is also a basketball champion and won a scholarship to Boston College.
# He joined the National Guard when he was 19 and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel before reaching the mandatory retirement age of 50 last September. He is currently the Army Guard's head defence lawyer for New England.
# He was a champion triathlete and has played basketball since he was a child. At Tufts University he earned the nickname Downtown Scotty Brown.
# He drives a 2005 GMC Canyon pickup truck with more than 360,000 km on the clock.
# His parents divorced when he was a toddler and both have remarried three times.
# He was caught shoplifting at the age of 12; a judge made him write a 1500 word essay on why his siblings would not want to see him playing basketball in jail .
# He managed to raise $1.3 million (NZ$1.8) in a single day in an online "money bomb" as part of his campaign.
# Brown has also raised US$5.5 million for the order of Cistercian Catholic nuns at St. Mary's Abbey in Wrentham, with whom his family has a special relationship.
- NZ HERALD STAFF
