There is a version of Sophie Habboo that a lot of people think they know. The one from Made in Chelsea, built on engineered tears and constructed drama. The one who cried her way through storylines that, as she puts it herself, were “completely edited.” That version was always only part of the picture, but it stuck, the way things do when you first meet someone through a screen.
The fuller version has been arriving gradually. First through the podcast, NearlyWeds, then NewlyWeds, then NearlyParents, where she and husband Jamie Laing invited listeners into every major milestone. The wedding. The house move. And now the one that changes everything, becoming a parent.
Raising Chelsea, the three part documentary that landed on Disney+ in April, is the most unguarded version of Sophie yet. Filmed over fifteen months with just one cameraman and a sound recordist, it follows the couple from pregnancy through to the arrival of their son Ziggy, born in December 2025. There are no lighting rigs or call sheets, just two people navigating something enormous while a camera quietly observes.
“There were loads of times I was like, surely you can’t be filming this,” Sophie says, laughing. “This is so boring, it’s not going to be interesting. But that’s what they wanted.”
What Dorothy Street Pictures and Disney wanted turned out to be exactly what audiences connected with, the unglamorous, unhurried, genuinely private reality of two people becoming three.
“The plan was never to show it,” she says. “I really wanted that to be a private moment.”
It was the anaesthetist who changed things. She had taken Jamie’s phone and started filming. When Sophie watched the footage back, something shifted.
“I was like, wow, this is so beautiful. Even though it was an emergency C section, it’s such a special moment. We had been filming for fifteen months, it felt like a real shame not to share it. And it’s been received so well, which is so nice.”
Full Look Ports1961 Jewellery Thomas Sabo
The show arrived to an audience ready for it, many of whom have grown up alongside Sophie and Jamie, moving through weddings, pregnancies and sleepless 4am moments in near parallel.
We meet a few months into Ziggy’s life, and Sophie is candid about where she is. She cried that morning before leaving for the shoot. She is deep in the fourth month sleep regression and only just beginning to find her way back into work. Balance, she says, is not something she has figured out yet.
“I’m just learning every day what my normal is. What’s going to work for me. For us.”
What she does know is that Ziggy has reorganised everything. Her priorities, her sense of what matters, her relationship with ambition.
“I still love my career. I love what I do. But if it came between me and Ziggy, he would always come first. Without a doubt.”
She is also honest about the pressure that comes with trying to do both.
“It’s amazing that women are encouraged to work and have everything,” she says. “But it’s also a lot of pressure. Because it isn’t normal to have a baby and go straight back to work. How can you have the biggest career and also be the most present mum?”
She lets the question sit.
“I’m just trying to work it out. I won’t lie, it’s hard.”
The guilt, she admits, is intense right now. But there is something grounding underneath it.
“I feel my most calm with Ziggy. My most present. I don’t think about anything else when I’m with him,” she says. “Which is great in so many ways, and hard when I’m back at work.”
Alongside the documentary, Sophie co runs Jampot Productions with Jamie, the company behind the show itself. She credits him for holding things together during her maternity leave, and pushes back on the idea that working with your partner is difficult.
“It’s actually a really nice break when we’re together at work,” she says. “We just get on really well. It takes the pressure off both of us. Working together is a bonus.”
That said, she does not pretend parenthood leaves relationships unchanged.
“We fight more,” she says. “You’re like family now. You’re like blood.”
They have one rule. Anything said in the middle of the night does not count.
“Because we’re just tired. It’s the middle of the night. So crazy,” she laughs. “But fights are healthy. If you’re not fighting, something is bottled up. You’ve got to get it out.”
Her definition of a healthy relationship is simple. Trust, support, loyalty, and making each other laugh.
“And fights,” she adds again.
When I ask if there are parts of her old self she is leaving behind, her answer is immediate.
“Family time is the most important thing for me now,” she says. “I used to fill up my weekends. Now I just want to keep them free. Be with my son and my husband. Do wholesome things. Create memories.”
When asked what her younger self would think of where she is now, she pauses.
“I think she’d be really proud.”
Made in Chelsea was built on selected takes and constructed drama. What Sophie has built since is something much closer to real life, and she knows it.
“With the podcast, people saw a different side of me,” she reflects. “And then with Disney, it was a really vulnerable side. The quiet moments, the tired moments, being pregnant and anxious and happy and fighting, all of it. I feel like people got a full 360 version of me.”
Asked whether Raising Chelsea could continue, she does not hesitate.
“We’d love to keep sharing our lives on this platform. Hopefully, yes.”
RAPID FIRE
Coffee or matcha?
Matcha.
One word for motherhood?
Complete.
One word for Jamie?
Chaos.
What recharges you fastest?
Family time.
One thing you can’t live without right now?
My son. And if it has to be material, my phone.
Jamie & Sophie: Raising Chelsea streaming on Disney+ and Hulu, as well as NearlyParents Podcast and Wednesdays Podcast on all podcast streaming platforms.
Interview Raluca Tudose
Photographer Yoshi Kono
Stylist Rachael Perry at Stella Creatives
Make Up Alex Reader at One Represents
Hair Willis Galbraith at The Only Agency
Photography Assistant Frankie Vasseur
Top Image credit
Full Look Ports1961 Jewellery Thomas Sabo
