If you grew up in the late ’90s, you’ve seen her face thousands of times. That giggling baby inside the cartoon sun opened every episode of Teletubbies on PBS, beaming down on Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po while millions of American kids watched from the floor.
Nobody knew her name for nearly two decades.
Her real name is Jess Smith. Born November 13, 1995, in Edenbridge, Kent, England, she was filmed at just nine months old in 1996. A health visitor at the local hospital spotted her sunny smile during a routine check and tipped off Ragdoll Productions. They needed a happy, giggling baby for the show’s opening.
The session was simple. Jess sat in a high chair, watched her dad play with toy cars, and laughed right at the camera. One short take. That was it.
A tweet from X.
Her family received £250 about $300 to $400 at the time plus a few toys. No royalties. No residuals. Just a one-off payment, standard for child extras in the 1990s.
That footage ended up in every single episode of the original series, which aired in over 100 countries and helped build a billion-pound merchandise empire by 2000. American kids grew up with it. Parents still remember the ritual.
Jess and her family kept the secret for 18 years out of pure shyness. Only close relatives knew.
Then, in December 2014, everything changed. At 19, during her first week at Canterbury Christ Church University, friends pushed her to share during an icebreaker activity. She posted on Facebook that same day:
“I used to hide it, After a lot of encouragement from my friends at university, I have acquired the confidence to come out with it. I am the sun from Teletubbies. There have been quite a few people impersonating ‘the sun,’ but only I could tell you the real story. I still have a baby face. I haven’t changed much either. I am still giggly.”
The post went viral. BBC, Daily Mail, People and others picked it up immediately. She even appeared on Lorraine to tell her story.
The billion-pound merchandise success is real for the franchise, but not directly tied to her one-time fee typical for 1990s kid TV contracts before social media and streaming changed everything.
Jess, now 30 and a mum of two girls, still looks remarkably like that baby face. One daughter is named Poppy Rae Latham the “Rae” a subtle nod to her sunshine roots. She occasionally posts about her Teletubbies past on Instagram (@j.smith_1995), where her bio proudly lists “Teletubbies Sun Baby 1997–2015.”
The irony hits hard: one of the most recognizable faces in children’s TV lived a completely normal life until she chose to speak up. As the Daily Mail reported back in 2014 when the story first broke,
“Jess Smith, from Chatham, Kent, has been chosen to be the giggling baby sun who looks over Teletubbyland when she was just nine months old.”
Today she’s raising her own kids while the rest of us just feel old realizing the sun baby now has babies of her own.
