7 Quick Questions for Paulina Porizkova

7 Quick Questions for Paulina Porizkova


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Paulina Porizkova catapulted into supermodel stardom when she was featured on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue in 1984. Four years later, she signed a reported


record-breaking $6 million contract with cosmetics company Estée Lauder, and has since graced the covers of numerous magazines and been featured in multiple fashion campaigns. She’s also


acted in several film and television roles and appeared as a judge on America's Next Top Model. Now at age 57, in her recently published collection of personal essays, No Filter: The Good,


the Bad, and the Beautiful, she candidly discusses beauty, aging, fame and her relationship with rock-star husband Ric Ocasek, who died in 2019. 


Members only You were quite poor while growing up in the Czech Republic. Then, as a model, you made millions. What was the first thing you bought yourself when you had some money?


Well, I always thought that modeling was temporary, and I was going to be fired when they figured out I wasn’t a model. So I put money aside. I was never a big spender. But there was one


thing I wanted badly that I did buy: a baby grand piano.

You are fluent in four languages. Which one do you dream in? And are your sons [Jonathan, 29, and Oliver, 24] multilingual as


well?


I dream in English, until I go to the Czech Republic, and then I dream in Czech. My children are not multilingual. Ric did not want them speaking Czech, because he worried that the three of


us would have our own secret language.

Given that you were famously married to a musician, was music an important part of your life together? What’s on your playlist?


Well, unfortunately my husband hated when I played classical music. It bored him.  Naturally, he had very strong opinions about music, and we often disagreed. Now, I have an extensive


playlist of the music he thought was bad. ABBA, Bee Gees … music where words are not important, where you can just sing along and dance.

You tell a wonderful tale in your book about how


you got kicked off of dating apps for impersonating Paulina Porizkova. In "No Filter," Porizkova writes a series of intimate, introspective and enlightening essays about the complexities of


womanhood at every age. Random House


Yes. I went on a few dates and they shut me down. But then I mentioned it on IG [Instagram] and they reinstated me. My friends tell me, “If you want real love, look for real men.” Well, I’m


looking! But it’s hard. I write a chapter about this, about why famous people stick with other famous people. Because when you go out with someone who isn’t famous, they either talk about


themselves all night and try to subtly one-up you to balance the scales, or they’re like, “I can’t believe I’m out with a supermodel.” It’s hard to see past the bubble of fame. I’m not doing


super well on the dating apps!

You’ve done some acting and directing. Any upcoming roles?


Yes, and I’d love to do more. I just did a small independent film that stars [Borat actress] Maria Bakalova …  She plays a young woman who studies the effects of trauma and grief, and then


she loses her dad. I am her mother, the grieving widow, which I guess is in my wheelhouse right now … but anyway, I would love to do more films.