GONE BUST: Jenn Sterger had been working to shed her sexpot image when the scandal erupted over Brett Favre’s allegedly lewd advances to her, her ex-manager says. (Rick Wilson/Getty Images)
Jenn Sterger, here before her implant removal, had been working to shed her sexpot image when the scandal erupted over Brett Favre’s allegedly lewd advances to her, her ex-manager says. (rick wilson/Getty Images)
She was a bad girl gone good — until Brett Favre brought her back down.
Jenn Sterger’s winning physique rocketed her to national fame on Sept. 15, 2005, when a TV camera’s pan of the bleachers found her sitting pretty in a tight pair of jeans shorts, a bikini top and a cowboy hat at the Florida State-University of Miami football game.
Overnight, Sterger, now 27, gained a cult following. She decided to move to New York to pursue a career as an actress and model.
She graced both Maxim and Playboy and began her stint as a “game-day hostess” for the Jets in 2008. The job was created for Sterger and entailed wearing cleavage-baring jerseys while reporting feature spots from the sidelines.
But in 2009, the vixen decided to shed her image as a walking pair of silicone 34Ds.
While in Tampa for Super Bowl week, she set her sights on manager Phil Reese.
“I thought she was very charismatic,” Reese said in an exclusive interview, in which he agreed to tell the story of Sterger’s dealings with sexual harassment and the NFL.
“We traded barbs throughout dinner,” he recalled of their first meeting. “She was instantly likeable, and that’s what I look for in clients. You can’t teach someone how to light up a room at a pitch meeting. You either have it, or you don’t, and she had it.”
At the time, Sterger was living in Hoboken and working on “The Daily Line,” a sports show on the Versus cable network. But she told Reese she harbored grander ambitions, he said.
“She obviously got a lot of mileage out of the implants, and it became a problem, professionally and personally,” Reese said. “She wanted to be seen as Jenn, not as a chest.”
Reese agreed to take her on as a client. But he couldn’t predict how her sex-kitten past would come pawing back.
Sterger was Reese’s only female client, he said, and he looked after her like a sister.
“She mentioned she wanted to get the implants removed, and I was all for it,” said Reese, who scored her a spread in Cosmopolitan magazine, where she talked about removing her breast implants.
“My boobs were not only the first thing some producers saw,” she wrote in the story. “They were also the only thing.”
The magazine spread was supposed to be the beginning of a new chapter for Sterger, Reese said.
But less than a year later, her attempt to be acknowledged as something other than the “hot chick” derailed spectacularly.
On Oct. 7, 2010, the sports Web site Deadspin published e-mails, voice mails and pictures Sterger allegedly received from Favre when he was the Jets’ quarterback.
“I’m going back to the hotel . . . to just chill . . . I wanted to have you come over tonight. Send me a text, I’d love to see you tonight,” the married Favre said in a voice mail.
After Sterger declined to be set up on a date with Favre, she allegedly received photos of his penis.
Deadspin said it had obtained the materials from a third party.
Reese said he was informed of the story the night before it went live.
“I knew it was going to be an absolute disaster for everyone involved,” he said.
His advice to his client: Cooperate with the NFL investigation, and keep your lips sealed to the press. She did exactly that.
“Everyone said Jenn was in it for the exposure and the money,” Reese said. “I thought, if she doesn’t do any interviews and take any undignified deals, she can’t be viewed like that.”
Reese said he and Sterger together turned down $300,000 worth of offers, many of which Reese ruled out because he thought they were bogus offers, or publicity stunts.
“Someone who worked with a bunch of Tiger Woods mistresses wanted to do a collaboration on paid opportunities for interviews,” Reese said. “Someone else wanted Jenn to host an event with a porn star.”
That same month, Sterger lost her job at Versus, purportedly because of “anemic” ratings.
Favre was fined $50,000 for failing to cooperate with the NFL probe, but the league said it could not determine that he violated its conduct policy.
“An NFL star player was given preferential treatment,” said Sterger’s lawyer, Joseph Conway. “[The] decision is an affront to all females and shows once again that, despite tough talk, the NFL remains the good-old-boys league.”
Sterger and Reese formed their own firm, Game of Inches LLC, court papers say, and started work on a tell-all book, as well as a reality-TV show.
“I was in talks with a production company to do a pilot, and I found funding,” Reese said.
But the plans fell through when Sterger abruptly sev ered ties with Reese last month and began talking with the Susan Blond p.r. firm, which reps Naomi Campbell and Sandra Lee.
She sued Reese in Florida’s Hillsborough Country Circuit Court for the return of materials for the tell-all. She charged in papers that Reese was “attempting to capitalize personally on the Favre story.”
Sterger no longer wants to write the book, according to the suit.
She now lives in Brooklyn and has been looking for work for months.
This week, Sterger is set to spill her side of the story for the first time — but the interview comes with strings attached.
She has taped a two-part sitdown with “Good Morning America,” set to air Tuesday and Wednesday. In exchange, the network agreed to hook Sterger up with a TV job, sources told The Post.
A spokesman for ABC denied Sterger was offered any job for her story.
Sterger declined multiple interview requests.
Reese said he wouldn’t comment on the claims in the lawsuit or his messy break-up with Sterger.
“I wish her all the best in her future endeavors,” he said.