Moving by means of a room as a teenage supermodel when she first got here to New York, mouths would drop, drinks would seem, eyes would spring out of sockets as if from a cartoon cat. In a single chatshow look I watched on YouTube, from 1994, the radio persona Howard Stern spontaneously undressed in entrance of her. Trousers, shirt, every part.

However at 57, the expertise is kind of totally different for Paulina Porizkova. One evening earlier this yr, she was at a celebration in Manhattan. Pushing her manner by means of the gang, she felt misplaced, and invisible, and previous. Then a younger girl sitting on the bar grabbed her arm. “Aren’t you…?” the lady yelled over the music. “Sure,” mentioned Porizkova shortly.

It was commonplace for her to be recognised. She’d been well-known since she was 4 years previous, first as a political pawn, when her mother and father left her behind of their native Czechoslovakia to flee the Soviets, however weren’t allowed to return. They staged a starvation strike in entrance of the Czech embassy in Stockholm, their new house, to get her again, which was everywhere in the information in Sweden – for 5 years, the Swedish press camped exterior Porizkova’s grandmother’s home in Czechoslovakia, the place she lived till she was 9 and was lastly reunited along with her mother and father. Quickly after that, at 15, she was whisked to Paris to grow to be a supermodel. On the peak of her fame she signed the highest-paid modelling contract on the earth. After which at 19 she turned a rock star’s spouse when she met Ric Ocasek of the Automobiles, who was greater than 20 years her senior.

“No,” mentioned the lady on the occasion. “No! You’re the girl who cries on Instagram.”

On Zoom from her rented New York condo, Porizkova greets me in a dressing robe and moist hair, and over the course of the interview she cries 3 times. Delicately however in a matter-of-fact manner, as if sneezing – they’re tears of grief, but additionally a brand new sort of pleasure. When her husband, Ocasek, died in 2019 after 30 years collectively, her life exploded in a collection of grim fireworks. There was the shock of discovering his physique and having to inform their two sons, the grief at dropping him, after which a last shock, which she felt as a betrayal.

Shortly earlier than his dying, when the 2 had been amicably separating, he and his legal professionals had secretly reduce her out of his will, citing “abandonment”. It floored her – she believed they had been nonetheless “greatest pals” who had progressively grown aside, however had continued dwelling collectively, consuming dinner collectively. However the will left her virtually penniless – all her earnings (together with her $6m Estée Lauder contract) had been going into the household account. When the pandemic struck, she felt abruptly very, very alone.

“Sooner or later once I was hideously crying, sobbing in mattress, I taped it. It was performative to a sure extent, I suppose, however I’d been crying a lot, it was the a hundredth time that week. So I needed to see what it appeared like. After which, in both a extremely courageous or actually fucking silly transfer, I posted it on-line.” And so started her fourth fame, as an influencer of kinds, one which talks about grief, nervousness and ageing, usually nude or in a bikini, and nonetheless, sure, typically in tears.

“It actually began with the dying of my husband. That’s what appeared to humanise me.” Fame, she writes in her new guide, No Filter, is sort of a bubble – the outer floor is reflective, so when folks take a look at you they solely see themselves, and it acts as a barrier, stopping connection. All through her life, she says, “I’ve at all times been candid, I’ve at all times been unfiltered. When you ask me a query, I’m going to reply it. I’m making an attempt to have a dialog.” The distinction now that she was sobbing on Instagram was that the bubble had burst. “Now folks listened. For the primary time in my life I used to be being heard, so I may use this voice to say issues, to speak about issues, that had been vital to me, such because the invisibility of ageing, and the way fucked up that’s.” She smiles quietly. “Being heard is so a lot better than being seen. It makes you actual.”

That younger girl in that darkish bar, she says, was giving her an enormous praise. “Till now, there’s been this diminishment of who I’m as an individual, as a result of I used to be at all times only a flat picture. And had she stopped there I may need taken offence, however she went on to say, ‘Thanks for being weak. As a result of it makes me really feel like I can do it, too.’” As her Instagram followers nudged in direction of 1m, she was invited by (former first woman of California) Maria Shriver’s publishing imprint to put in writing a guide of essays. Three months later, she emerged along with her guide, through which she writes about money, love, fame and destiny, in addition to the sticky particulars of life in entrance of a digital camera.

It was on her fourth reserving as a mannequin – she would have been in her mid-teens – when the photographer approached as she was having her make-up accomplished and rested his penis on her shoulder. Because the make-up artist rolled her eyes, she realised this was, “My new regular. I shortly assumed it was a part of the job and I wasn’t improper.” She wrote concerning the expertise not as a result of it was uncommon, however as a result of it was odd. “It was a freaking on a regular basis incidence! That was simply the primary time it occurred. We acquired actually good at keeping off sexual harassment by making a joke of it, as a result of you may’t insult the man’s ego – that’s actually vital, he’ll by no means guide you once more. You be taught all these little manipulations as a younger woman.” When her friends had breakdowns and went house, she “wasn’t significantly empathic. As a result of I believed, ‘Nicely, why can’t you fend them off like I do? And why are you taking it so personally?’ However, I used to be a toddler. I used to be a toddler!”

Watching the style business crack underneath the burden of #MeToo, at first “felt extremely rewarding. All people within the enterprise is aware of the identical creeps, so it was sort of lovely. A victorious second of validation.” However: “Then some accusations got here in opposition to folks I appreciated. And that’s the place issues acquired fascinating, that battle in me. I felt like, ‘He did that to me, too, however we laughed once I instructed him to fuck off. So he’s not a nasty man, proper?’ There was some ethical wrangling I needed to do.” She winces.

Although Porizkova not often fashions at the moment, on a current shoot she was reminded how fashions had been at all times referred to as “women”. “And modelling, I’m nonetheless referred to as a fucking woman! However I’m an previous woman. That’s one thing we must always change.” She’s not simply speaking concerning the language, she’s speaking concerning the business. “‘Ladies’ shouldn’t be fashions, really. They need to be girls. It’s actually onerous to face up to the pressures and tensions of the modelling world whenever you’re younger, listening to on a regular basis that you just don’t measure up. Which is mainly what youngsters are doing to one another on-line now, that’s what was at all times occurring within the trend world for fashions. However these youngsters aren’t even getting paid for it.”

Some years in the past, when Porizkova’s husband was nonetheless alive, she was at a restaurant with pals when she had a revelation. “We had been all girls of a sure age and a sure earnings bracket, very comfy, however dissatisfied with aspects of our lives,” she remembers, “and, one after the other, all of us admitted we had been on antidepressants. We had been all medicating it away.” She’d began taking SSRIs when her debilitating panic assaults had returned. She’d had them on and off all through her life, since she was 10. It was not a cheerful childhood. Her father left as quickly as she moved to Sweden and her mom was largely absent.

For some time it appeared as if the medication weren’t working. Then she realised her interior world had quieted. She shrugged off arguments. Intercourse acquired worse, however life acquired simpler. “However it seems my creativity in a big half stems from this factor that drives me, which additionally produces nervousness.” Two years later she weaned herself off them. “It wasn’t till I got here again to my sweaty, anxious self and determined to white-knuckle it that it dawned on me: ‘Wait, a few of these issues we medicate most likely must be felt, in order that we are able to be taught and transfer on. It’s like emotional Botox. You repair one factor at the price of one other.” However, she grins, “It had been a fucking good trip.”

She’s relationship now, or making an attempt to, for the primary time since she was 19, and it’s much less enjoyable than she imagined. It’s additionally making her take into consideration actual Botox, the less-emotional type. “Relationship in your 50s is a horrible place to be. So I get it, issues like Botox and fillers make it a little bit simpler to slip in, however in case you have it you’re supporting the societal values that older girls usually are not enticing. And by giving into it, we’re perpetuating it. We’re agreeing that youthful girls are extra invaluable and that our age makes us ugly, that it’s a flaw, that it’s one thing that must be fastened moderately than it being a pure change that’s inevitable.” Most of her pals have had one thing accomplished. “However I’m not going to cross judgment on others. I’d identical to to possibly clear their glasses a little bit bit, present them the reality. In fact, then I get up some days and go: ‘Goddammit, I would like a decrease facelift,’ so…” she hoots with laughter.

Although her posts on magnificence solely went viral because the pandemic, she’s been desirous about it, its duties, its repercussions, for many years. “Because the age of 15, this was my entire world. I’d realized to see folks in symmetry and measurements, a judgmental, loopy imaginative and prescient of what’s lovely. And so then I’d attempt to counteract it, by desirous about whether or not it touched my soul.” She places her open mindedness all the way down to “the unintentional luck of, at a really formative level in my life, of being referred to as ugly.”

As the brand new woman in school in Sweden, she was violently bullied, her head flushed down the bathroom. Then, despatched to Paris on a modelling project, “I bear in mind standing in entrance of the mirror, and going, nothing’s modified. I look precisely the identical manner as I did three weeks in the past, however three weeks in the past, I used to be ugly. Now I’m lovely. It’s nothing to do with me. It’s solely a change in notion. So I’ve been conscious since I used to be a young person that the duty of magnificence is the beholder’s. Like, if you happen to see a beautiful sundown, and run in direction of it and fall within the ditch, it’s not the sundown’s fault.” She chuckles. “However I struggled with ‘fairly privilege’.” That is the concept folks seen as fairly, often by European magnificence requirements, are given extra benefits than the remainder of us. “ I saved saying, ‘Sure, being regarded as lovely is like having additional money in your pocket that everyone can see. So that you’ll get higher therapy, however you’ll additionally get robbed.’ I don’t assume I totally understood what ‘fairly’ did till I began dropping it as I acquired older. Now I’m like, ‘Oh, I see. I’m going to get that dashing ticket now. Attention-grabbing.’” Attention-grabbing! That is how she chooses to see the world now, with its griefs and wrinkles and traumas – fascinating. Curious!

Leaning again in her chair, Porizkova exhibits me the short-term wallpaper she’s put up – her husband wouldn’t have accepted, she notes – and the “cheesy” faux fireplace behind her, which she loves. It’s the primary time she’s lived alone and he or she’s slowly studying to find it irresistible. What to do subsequent with this midlife fame? She’d love to do a actuality present. “I’m not valuable about my secrets and techniques. I guard different folks’s, however you may have all of mine. As a result of secrets and techniques foster disgrace. And that’s one of many foremost issues I need to exorcise out of my life. It comes again to the Botox factor, and ‘fixing’ your face. When you really feel ashamed of your age, if you happen to really feel disgrace for not wanting the way in which you used to, one method to repair that disgrace is to repair your face.” She pauses. What’s the opposite manner? “To eliminate the disgrace! It’s tougher. It’s tougher, however I’m engaged on it. I really feel highly effective now.” She gasps. “I feel that is the primary time I’ve mentioned that out loud. I really feel like I’m in my energy. That’s fairly superior, no?”

I spend a while, later, watching extra clips of Porizkova in her youth, modelling in Paris in numerous jazzy hats, leaping by means of waves in a washing swimsuit, and I encounter one other chatshow look – David Letterman in 1986, when she was 21. “Do you discover that fashions are useless and shallow and superficial?” he asks her, leaning in. Sure, she replies, evenly. “However, you don’t embody your self in that class?” “I don’t see myself as a mannequin, David,” she purrs, holding his gaze. “What do you see your self as?” Elevating an eyebrow, she says, “A human being.” And the studio viewers collapses with laughter.

No Filter: The Good, the Unhealthy, and the Lovely by Paulina Porizkova is revealed by The Open Area, an imprint of Penguin Random Home US, at £22.82

Hair by Jerome Cultrera at LAtelier NYC utilizing Oribe; and make-up by Steven Canavan at LAtelier NYC utilizing MAC