The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - Paulina Poriskova On The Early Days Of Sports Illustrated, Modeling, Relationships, Struggle, & The Good, The Bad, & The Beautiful

Episode Date: December 26, 2022

#529: On today's episode we are joined by Paulina Poriskova. Paulina is a Swedish model. Born in Czechoslovakia and raised in Sweden, Porizkova became the first Central European woman to appear on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue in 1984. Paulina joins the show today to discuss her career as a model, her upbrining, ups and downs in life, and her recent book No Filter: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful.   To connect with Paulina Poriskova click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential This episode is brought to you by Canopy The Canopy Humidifier has an anti-microbial filter that catches irritating minerals, bacteria, and other nasty stuff from the water before it is evaporated into your environment. Go to getcanopy.co and use code SKINNY at checkout for an additional 10% off your purchase. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp BetterHelp is online therapy that offers video, phone, and even live chat-only therapy sessions. So you don’t have to see anyone on camera if you don’t want to. It's much more affordable than in-person therapy & you can be matched with a therapist in under 48 hours. Our listeners get 10% off their firs month at betterhelp.com/skinny . This episode is brought to you by Alo Moves. Alo Moves streams on-demand yoga, fitness and mindfulness classes, and is an extension of the wildly popular Alo Yoga--athleisure brand. Alo Moves is the one stop shop for everything wellness- just need one app that has everything. Go to Alomoves.com and use code SKINNY30 for 30 days free & 60% off your annual membership. This episode is brought to you by Perfect Snacks Don't go nuts this holiday season, Fuel yourself with Perfect Bar: The original refrigerated protein bar. Go to perfectsnacks.com/skinny to find out how you can try their Refrigerated Protein Bars for free. This episode is brought to you by Route App If you shop online, Route is a must-have free app that tracks everything you order online in one place. Visit www.route.com/skinny to download Route and for more information. This episode is brought to you by AG1 You take one scoop of AG1 and you're absorbing 75 high-quality vitamins, minerals, whole food supported superfoods, probiotics, and adaptogens to help start your day right. This is the best option for easy, optimal nutrition out there. Go to athleticgreens.com/SKINNY and get a free 1 year supply of Vitamin D + 5 travel packs with your first purchase. Produced by Dear Media    

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She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her. I had been modeling for three or four years and then I came to the United States. I got a cover of Sports Illustrated and everybody kept telling me I was beautiful. So the way I sort of equalized that in my head was it's not really about me. It's about people's perception of me.

Because when I was in Sweden at 15, one day I was called ugly and nobody wanted to date with me. And I had my head stuck in a toilet. A week later, I was called beautiful and getting money for being beautiful. It made no sense to me. Welcome back. Welcome back to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. That clip was from our guest of the show today, Paulina Porsikova. Paulina is a Swedish model born in Czechoslovakia and raised in Sweden. Porsikova became the first Central European woman to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue in 1984. And today, Paulina joins the show to discuss her career as a model, her upbringing, ups and downs in life, and her recent book, No Filter, the good,

the bad, and the beautiful. With that, Paulina, welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her show. This is the Skinny Confidential, him and her. Paulina is here. You are absolutely beautiful. I'm a huge fan. Oh, thank you very much. You're absolutely beautiful too. I don't know about that with these lips right now.

I just told her. They are definitely plump, but they are definitely not distracting or unpretty. I saw my wife this morning and then she left for a bit. And then the next time I saw her was in the studio with these lips. And I was, whoa. Listen, it's a lot right now, but it'll look good in two days. I would love for you to talk about being born into the Cold War era and really talk about what was happening during your birth and the upbringing.

Okay. So my birth, I can't remember. Sorry. But yeah, being born in a communist country. So it's interesting because when you are a child, the situation that you grow up in is just normal to you. That's where you grow up. Like I didn't know it was different anywhere else in the world. So for me, you know, living seven of us in a one bedroom house and having no new clothes, getting a banana and a bag of peanuts for Christmas was, you know, that was normal. It was like bananas were precious, literally one banana a year for Christmas. It was a big deal. My grandmother standing in line to get milk at, you know, three o'clock in the morning so that so that I would get some milk.

Food was mostly potatoes and things made out of flour, dumplings, which I still to this day love. And then like really, really overcooked vegetables, which we called sauce. And yeah, there was one dusty Barbie in a shop window in our toy store in our little town. And I would pass this dusty Barbie for like my entire childhood, just looking at her and so wishing that she would be mine, that I could have that Barbie. And she got progressively dustier and dustier. But like she, to me, was the symbol of like, of something that we didn't have a lot of, which was pretty and shiny and glamorous and, you know, fairytale-like.

Only Christmas was like that. Did you know, you said you kind of didn't know at the time, but did you have any context that getting a banana for Christmas was different or none? No, no, no, no. But banana for Christmas was, you know, that was like if you were lucky. So at what point did you decide, okay, I want to do something really big with my life? Was it very young? Did it come later? Oh, I, in all honesty, never had that thought in my life. Ever. I'm 57 now and I still have never thought I want to do something really big with my life. So how were you approached when you were

young? How did that happen? So the story goes, so I'm born in a communist country. My parents left me behind when they were fleeing the Soviet occupation in 1968, very much like what happened in Ukraine last year. And left you behind with a relative? Left me behind with my grandmother, yeah. So I was raised by my grandmother, who sort of turned out to be my mom. Then my mom came back to kidnap me. It didn't succeed. She was put in jail.

She was in house arrest for three years. It was a big whole big mess again you could totally read about on wikipedia would you say kidnap you was it like you because your grandmother didn't you didn't want to go she didn't want to go like no because my parents fled they were criminals for fleeing the country illegally and i was as a as a you know czechoslovakian citizen was not allowed abroad. So there was no way for my parents to get me. They lived in Sweden and there was no way to get me. So essentially, if they hadn't tried something, they would not have their daughter would be lost. And when you were little, did you

want to go back with your mother or were you content with being with your grandma? I was totally fine being with grandma. I didn't you know, my parents left when I was three. So I was kind of little. And so I was, you know, I was used to my grandmother and I was, I was actually perfectly happy in my little house. And what about your siblings? Well, at that point I didn't have siblings. My mother came back to kidnap me. She was six months pregnant with my baby brother. And so then I was given, suddenly given the gift of not only a mother I didn't really know, but also a baby brother. You know, then that sort of came together. That, that, that happened at the same time when I was seven years old. And when I was nine, we got kicked out of the country, moved to Sweden.

And that's when I realized that bananas were not that rare. You could actually have a whole bowl of them rotting on the countertop. You know, this is where I discovered there was not only one dusty Barbie in the shop window for the children to like look at as though she was in a museum but they were actually for sale that was really amazing to me really cool and at what point did your parents continue to have children that's it me and my little brother okay and so what did you sort of get discovered in Sweden? Oh, so yeah. So now I'm in Sweden. I'm nine years old. I don't speak the language. I

have to learn to speak the language, obviously. I was sort of mercilessly bullied in school because I was from a communist country. So of course, you know, you have that dirty communist label printed on your forehead. And I had only I had three friends. Thank God I had three friends. It's amazing what friends can do for you. These three girls that, you know, one had really severe acne. One was really overweight. And one was just a weirdo who liked to hang out with us and study Roman history and listen to classical music.

Just cool. And one of those girls was really interested in fashion. And she wanted to do makeup. She wanted to be a makeup artist. So she would use me and the two other girls to do our faces, do makeup on us, and then take a little Kodak Instamatic pictures of us. And then we'd all wait until we had enough money to pull it together to get them developed and then see what we had gotten. At some point, she saw a newspaper ad in the local newspaper that said, like advertising like a modeling school. It was like a small time local little agent, this older woman who had once been a hand and foot model, I believe, probably needed a

little extra money. So she was advertising a modeling school, learn how to walk, how to apply your makeup. And my girlfriend sent in those Kodak and somatic pictures to her going, I really want to be a professional makeup artist. And how do I go about it? And the woman got back to her going, who's that girl? How old is she? How tall is she? How much does she weigh? And so my girlfriend set up a meeting with me and this lady and the lady, you know, we met at a hamburger stand. And she said, I want to introduce you to John Casablanca, who's coming into town two weeks from now, mall. He's doing some sort of a model contest in a Danish mall. And so she took me to meet him.

I was 14 and a half. He took, he literally spent maybe two minutes with me. He looked at me he went you have beautiful skin would you like to go to paris and i was like yeah and did you know at this point that you were exceptionally beautiful like were people staring at you when you you know walked by or at school i think you missed the part about me getting really bullied in school but maybe they were bullying you because you were exceptionally beautiful.

You didn't know at all that you were beautiful. How would you know that you were beautiful if everybody tells you you're ugly? That's so crazy to me. So even when you were recruited to go to Paris, you still did not think, oh my God, I'm beautiful? God, no. I thought they had made a tremendous mistake.

Somebody needed a new pair of glasses. But I was so, you know, I thought it was an opportunity I couldn't possibly turn down. So yeah, I was going to go to Paris and try this out. But I knew they were going to send me back in the first week. Like that was granted that somebody had made a mistake. I would arrive in Paris and they would just go, okay, whoever invited you never, you just go back to Sweden. So no, I never, I had zero sense of what I looked like. I saw myself the way other people saw me. I thought I was ugly.

So I would thought I'm ugly, but so I'll be really smart. So I read a lot of Roman history and listened to classical music. So that was me. What point in your life, there had to be a point where you realized, oh, you were beautiful? Maybe now. Wow. That is so crazy. To me, like you're one of the most beautiful models on the planet. And that's so crazy that you, when you

were younger and even when you get to Paris, that you didn't have an epiphany that you were beautiful. God, no. I felt like an imposter the entire time. Like I was just waiting for somebody to come to their senses and send me back home for years and years and years. And then, you know, like obviously, ultimately, I had been modeling for three or four years. And then I came to the United States. I got a cover of Sports Illustrated and everybody kept telling me I was beautiful. So the way I sort of equalized that in my head was that it's not really about me. It's about people's perception of me because when I was in Sweden at 15, one day I was called ugly and nobody wanted to date with me and I had my head stuck in a toilet. And then a week later, I was called

beautiful and getting money for being beautiful. Like it made no sense to me. And and so so I justified it as well, actually, rightly so. It wasn't about me. It was about the way people about the people that were looking at me. When you got to Paris, what was something that surprised you about entering into this world of modeling? Oh, pretty much everything. I mean, it was a completely different world from anything I had ever experienced. I mean, I was a kid in middle school and then suddenly I'm in Paris and I get invited, you know, to evenings out with like French movie stars and, you know, discotheques and, you know, and then going to work where I'm supposed to represent a sort of an ideal of

what a woman is supposed to look like. And I'm 15. I don't have a freaking idea what a woman is supposed to look like. So how did you sort of learn the ropes of modeling? Was there someone that you had that was a mentor or did you just look around and just fake it until you make it? Yeah, no, it's pretty much you get thrown into the pool head first and then see if you can swim or sink. I mean, like I had, I started with a lot of other girls. I was only 15 year old.

There was a bunch of 16 year olds that came in and they all got sent home at the end of the summer. And I was the only one that did so well that i that i stayed on was it because of work ethic or discipline what what do you think was the mixture there luck no oh my gosh you're so cool and i'm photogenic okay there we go you're you're photogenic okay yeah i'm photogenic my the specific angles and planes and mathematics of my face looked good on the photo which by the way is not as flattering as you think it is when somebody comes up to you and goes god you're so beautiful in your pictures no oh my gosh go ahead well i was gonna, coming from a communist country,

when you come from that background and that perspective, what is the difference in perspective now? Because I'm assuming that since you've seen such two different ways of life, that it's so informative in so many different ways for you. I was born in a communist country, but then I moved to Sweden, which was possibly the most gender equal country in the world in the seventies. So I lived there. That's where I learned to be a young woman. And that's where I learned about sexuality and about my body. And it was all about, you know, being free and

nude and sex was great for you. And in school, they taught you that you should masturbate because it's healthy for you. And then I moved to France where sex was a weapon and women were manipulative and beautiful and men adored them. And then I moved to the United States where all of it was dirty. So I, you know, I've, I've sampled a lot in my life, four different cultures, four different languages, four different histories of countries. So I, I, I have a So I feel like I have a fairly good, like my world is pretty big, you know, because I've gotten to sample a lot of it. What's your favorite world to sample out of all four of those? What's the most fun? You know what? It's comparing apples and oranges. I guess what I'm saying is because if you come from, you know, that type of culture and then

to like the most open culture, I imagine that's such a shock in some kind of way because when you get to a place that's that open and that free, when you come from a place that's not, I imagine that's... Which one are you talking about? I know, yeah. Being that open and free.

Yeah, she's saying that the United States is very suppressive when it comes to sex. No, I'm talking about when you first moved to Sweden. Okay, so that was a little bit of a shock, but it was also, I was nine when I left the Czech Republic, so I didn't understand, didn't have much understanding of like sex and, you know, and like turning into a young woman. So all of that came to me when I was in Sweden.

I didn't really have a comparison. It wasn't until like years later, I wrote an op-ed for the New York Times about it about four years ago about being a woman in four different countries and how different, you know, how different you are treated as a woman in these four different countries. When you look back on your modeling days at the peak of your success in modeling, what is something that you think would surprise our audience about that experience? Something you look back on and you think, oh my gosh, that's so crazy that we did that. Or there's something shocking. Every single day of my life was a bunch of different people. It was a new setting. It was new people.

Every day was being a new kid in school. So out of all the thousands of days I did,'s it's kind of a hard call you know because every day was different from the day before it's not like you had a routine right where you worked in one place and then one thing sticks out it's like no every day is radically different I think the most memorable event in modeling to me happened when I was shooting a bikini in a waterfall where I had to swim across a lake. The photographer wanted me to be perched on these rocks underneath a waterfall. And of course, I obliged as one does when one is 17, swam across, crawled up those rocks, and then realized that the waterfall, when it pounds on you, it's like fists beating you into the ground.

And so I stood there on these sharp rocks with the water like beating me. Couldn't really see the photographer. He was too far away. I was just hoping that I was doing a good job posing. He finally waved and said, okay, good, we're done. And I jumped off the rock to swim back to shore. And I realized I couldn't swim because it had taken all my strength to stand on those rocks. And so I, I, I was like, I, I, I couldn't swim across the lake. And so I just, and nobody was paying attention to me. They were all like wrapping up their equipment to go, to go back. So like, and I was like, oh, and nobody paid any attention. I just remember that old trick, I guess, from swim school or something, where I just turned over on my back and I inflated my lungs

and I just kind of let myself drift to shore. And when I actually arrived at shore, I passed out. So that was probably like the most physically harrowing moment. But I think people don't realize how hard, and I don't know if i'm saying this eloquently how hard it is to model at the at the scale that you were modeling there i mean i've read stories about you know you guys modeling with tigers or like what you just there's a lot of dangerous elements that go into it and it's a lot of work contorting your body and holding your breath and i mean it seems like a lot of work at what point did you realize that you had like leverage in this game and you

had power and you could say no not until I didn't need it anymore so it wasn't until I met my husband I think I got married and I started doing movies. And that's when I started thinking, you know what? I don't, I can kind of pick and choose what I want to do now. So I wasn't beholden to modeling for like my life to, to, to be making the money I was making. Like I could actually, you know, I had other options. So that was when I stopped feeling so obliging. All right. If you're like me, you used to have one of those ugly eyesore, disgusting, moldy humidifiers. And then I was introduced to Canopy. I loved Canopy humidifiers so much. Like I was so obsessed

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One of the greatest lessons Lauren and I have learned hosting this show for almost seven years is this. So many of the high performers and overachievers we have interviewed swear by therapy as one of their most powerful tools in their toolbox. We have had so many people come on the show and talk about how they have experienced breakthroughs or moved past trauma or even just been able to work through a problem they were stuck on and get past it to come out the other side even better. We have even had multiple therapists on this show to discuss how they work with people to help them live their best lives. For the longest time, therapy has been so broken. You

were limited to therapists in your area. You had to get in your car and drive over, find a therapist, interview them, see if they would even take you on as a client, wait in a waiting room, and then bare your soul hoping that it would be the right fit. And if it wasn't, that was just a big waste of time. Think of all that wasted time. This is why we love our partner BetterHelp so much. BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, helping millions connect with professionally licensed and vetted therapists available 100% online. Plus, it's affordable. Now, instead of wasting all that time in person, you can utilize this incredible tool and platform all online from the comfort of your own home. It's amazing to be able to get so many people access to therapy. We really believe that it can change people's lives and have a massive impact on mental health for anyone who tries the

platform. As the world's largest therapy service, BetterHelp has matched 3 million people with professionally licensed and vetted therapists available 100% online. Plus it's affordable. Just fill out the brief questionnaire to match with a therapist. If things aren't clicking, you can easily switch to a new therapist anytime. It couldn't be simpler. No waiting rooms, no traffic, no endless searching for the right therapist. Learn more and save 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com slash skinny. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P.com slash skinny. When you look at models now with social media and you have experienced it in actuality, what is the biggest contrast and what are the similarities, if any? You know what? Times really have changed enormously. I started in 1980. So that's like, oh, what,

40, 40 years ago, 42 years ago. Holy cow. And models were coat hangers. We were hired because we were of a certain size. We were a certain height and a certain size, zero or two, because every sample of clothing that was produced by the designers, there was only one outfit in one size. And a hundred of us had to fit the same piece of clothing. We just had Emily Didodato, I messed her name up, but she's a model. And she did some plus size model. And she said that was the difficulty is they only made the clothing in the one or two sizes. She's like, hey, this is not a size for me, but that's just how they did all the clothing. That's how it was done. And that is why we were models. It wasn't necessarily because we were so amazingly gorgeous. It's because we fit the clothing.

What is the pressure like to stay slim? I can only imagine. You know what? I saw some of my friends have some really serious issues with staying slim because maybe they were naturally more athletic built or more voluptuously built. And those girls had trouble. And then there's those of us who are naturally slim. This is just what I look like. So I was good because I was that automatic size, but completely by accident. It's not like I did anything for it. If you had a niece or a daughter or someone that was really close to you that came to you and said, I want to get into modeling. I want to go to Paris just like you did at 15. What would you advise them? Would you tell them not to do it? Would you say, go do it and just

run with it? What would your advice be? I'm old enough to know that my advice would not really be heard because if somebody wants to go to Paris to try out to be a model and that's what they're going to do. So I think my only advice would be to have a return ticket. That's smart. Because you have to experience what you want to experience. If that's what you want to do, it's like I can sit here and tell you all the pitfalls of modeling until I'm blue in the face, but it's a changed world. It's a different world. And you have to find out for yourself what your part of it is. And I'm sure there are women, girls that were models with that felt very differently about it than I do. When you look back on all, everything you've accomplished,

what's your most iconic moment, whether it's in acting or the modeling world? It would be writing this book in three months. That is not an easy feat. What was your routine like to write this book? Because were you, are you up at 6 a.m.? What's your, what's your, how did you structure that? Because three months is a short period of time to write a book.

Three months is a really freaking short time to write a book. Why do you think you were able to write it so quickly? In part because it was a challenge to me and I cannot resist a challenge. I'm like, I think I'm like one of those Spanish bulls. You show them a red flag and I'm going to go even if it kills me, which is a little sad, but I'm aware of it. I'm afraid I'm aware that this is a flaw that I have. So it was a challenge. And also I had my agent, Marley Rousseff was really smart. And she said, look, this is an impossible task. You need somebody that they can read it and give you feedback as you write because three months is impossible. So she recommended me this really

lovely woman who is in her own right, a published essayist. And so I would just, you know, and so my routine was this, I would get up more cup of morning coffee and I would get on the line with, with Carrie, who was my reader. And she would have taken all, you know, everything that I had sent her the night before, and she would critique it and she would just slash into it without mercy. And she'd go, Pete, this beginning sucks. This essay is actually three separate essays. You need to pull it apart. This one has no ending. This one has no reason to exist. Keep moving. And so I kept moving. And then after our phone call, I would sit and I would write and write and write and write until my brain literally just turned off and I had no idea what I was doing anymore.

And then I would watch some really bad Netflix show and repeat next day. I mean, you did it in three months. That's pretty impressive. Yeah. Since we're in New York, I have a question that I'm sure you've been asked before, but I have to know. Were you around New York in the studio 54 days? That's a little bit before my time. A little bit before your time. Yeah. Okay. So what was what was popular during your time? Like what was the like it spot? Oh, my God. The the mid 40s, mid 40s, mid 80s were fantastic. We had Danceteria, where Madonna was out like every night, literally dancing on the second floor. We had Aria, you know, the church turned into a nightclub, very sacrilegious and very fun. We had The Tunnel. We had, actually, there was a place called The Saint,

I believe, which was a sort of an all-gay club, which we models would go to because we could just dance and not be hassled, which was kind of great. Oh, and this place called Heartbreak, which was like somewhere in the Lower East Side. And it just like played more rock and roll and had really cheap drinks. And it had like like the cool people, you know, the ones that weren't like disco hounds that were like a little bit more gritty. When you're this well known and people recognize your face and your face is everywhere. And you mentioned not getting hassled. Were you hassled a lot back in the day when like everyone is just like they don't have social media.

They don't have access to you all the time. OK, so look, from 15 to I was on my first Sports Illustrated cover when I was 18. That's young. Yeah, I was in the first Sports Illustrated when I was 17, but that was Cheryl Teagues on the cover. And so the following year I was on the cover. I'm 18 and that was the first time. I had already had like a hundred covers before that. But the way you look on a cover

and the way you look in real life without any makeup, it's just like people don't notice you. You can go unnoticed David Letterman and, you know, suddenly interviews. And this is when I started becoming known as a, well, I guess supermodel is what they call it these days. And that's where the loss of privacy came in a little bit. But then I met my husband at 19, who was a huge rock star. And the loss of privacy was complete. And what was it like when you met your husband?

It was magical. Was it chemistry right away? Well, you know, I had a crush on him before I ever even met him because I saw his video on MTV. MTV had literally just come out. It's like 1984. And I was alone at home one night and I was watching MTV and I saw this video and I just thought, I was transfixed by this man on the screen. I just thought he was so beautiful. There was something about him that like really spoke to me. It looked sort of vaguely alien. Also, you have to understand that my early childhood crushes were Julius Caesar and Mr. Spock from Star Trek. So this guy was like it.

It was like the perfect man for me. I thought, oh my God, he's so gorgeous. And he had these turquoise eyes and this black hair and it seemed really tall and lanky. And I just thought he was amazing. And then a couple of months later, I got called in to go and audition for a video for a band called The Cars.

But I had no connection between this guy that I saw. It was his solo video for a band called The Cars. But I had no connection between this guy that I saw, it was his solo video, and the band called The Cars. It wasn't American. I had never heard of The Cars. I didn't know. So I went to audition for the video, mostly because Timothy Hutton was directing it. And I had heard of Timothy Hutton. And I was like, oh, he's cute. So I went to audition for the part for the video. I the part in the video and then the band wanted to take me out to dinner before the video i'm sure they did funny nobody kind of told me that that wasn't actually normally done i was like oh okay this is oh this is how videos go right you take you take the woman out for for dinner but the whole band took me out for dinner with the manager and um

we were sitting in this hotel room and everybody was sitting around the table and I was kind of looking around and I was like, huh, they're all kind of old. You know, they're like all in their thirties or whatever. I'm 19 and we're just sitting there waiting. I go, are we waiting for something? Because I was hungry. One of the guys said, oh yeah, we were waiting for Rick. He's in the other room. And then the door opened and then that man of the video that I had seen on MTV walked out. And I started hyperventilating. And I was just like, oh, expletive. Why don't you say this when I walk into the room?

I didn't say that when you walked into the room. So did he notice that you were hyperventilating? Or did he start hyperventilating over you? He was kind of like an odd bird. He was really tall and lanky. He was six foot four. And he just sort of had this sort of elegant, slightly awkward grace about him, the way he walked towards me. And he just sat, I was sitting actually on a floor next to a couch. And he just folded up next to me and he just stared at me like this. And I was like, I'm going to pass out. So this is a problem because I'm actually going to pass out.

And so I thought, okay, it's going to happen. So I better prepare them. And I was like, I'm really sorry, you guys. I'm super nervous and I might pass out. And if I do, it's not a big deal. It's just I have some anxiety. Wait a minute, wait a minute.

You're telling me this man had so much charm that he almost made you pass out just for saying hello? Yeah, yeah. Lauren, come on. Yeah, if you didn't get that, I'd call this a dud.

Yeah, I'd call it a dud too, Michael. And you're not tall and lanky and elegant. Sorry. Oh my God, we've only got two kids. We've only known each other for 25 years. And now, call it off. Cancel this. What is it like being one of the most famous supermodels in the world

and dating this famous musician? Is it everything that we could imagine and more? Or is it different in reality? Well, because these are the things that people on the outside glamorize, right? Yeah. Yeah. What really happens here, and this is an essay in my book that I feel very fondly about because I'm trying to describe to you what it's like to be famous. Being famous is like you're encased in a soap bubble, right? First of all, you're kind of isolated from everything outside your soap bubble. And secondly, when somebody looks at you,

what they first see is their own reflection in the bubble before they see you. Wow. So when they look, when people look at a celebrity, it's with their own assumptions, their likes, their dislikes, it's their projections onto you that is one of the most eloquent things i've ever heard about fame that's very interesting thank you so so when you're out with your musician husband you're a famous supermodel you felt like people were projecting their own things onto you guys. And when we were separate, we were both in our own bubble. And my bubble was slightly bigger than his

because I could not put on makeup and put on my glasses and nobody would give a... I don't know if I can swear on this program or not. Would give a fuck. But my husband was so... He was so obvious. I mean, he looked like an upside down exclamation mark. I always thought that.

I always wanted to draw him as that because I thought it was hilarious. An upside down exclamation mark. Yeah, he was always dressed in black, black hair. He was really slim. Turn him upside down, it's an exclamation mark. So he had a much smaller bubble than I did. And when I was with him him I got sucked into his tiny little bubble which meant that our world got really small we were really very isolated this

is why famous people are drawn to other famous people because you can merge the soap bubble merge you know just like real soap bubbles in the bathtub when you're doing them with the kids you can put two bubbles together and they kind of create a weird little tunnel. It's like that with the celebrity bubbles. So it's easier to interact because you're not looking at each other with that reflective surface. So being famous, being a celebrity is really isolating. It's really lonely. Yeah, we do.

You know, obviously we've done this a long time. We've had all sorts of different levels of fame on the show. And I think like that is a common theme where people, you know, a lot of times it's something that people think they want. But mostly people that come on and talk about it, they talk about it being lonely and isolating and sometimes a burden. It's not that you're not grateful for the opportunity, but your life gets altered in a way where it's like you're almost, you're looked at life gets altered in a way where it's like, you're almost, you're

looked at as a spectacle in a way. And people, obviously they're putting their own perceptions and their own judgments and they're almost looking at you not as another human being. Which is why I always said, I felt when I was the most seen, I was the least heard. And the more you saw of me, the less you actually knew of me. Because being a celebrity, being in that bubble makes it impossible for you to be known as a human being. And guess what? Underneath it all, we are all human beings. Whether we are making money one way or the other way, making little of it or much of it, we still bleed when we're cut. I mean, that makes no difference. But certain people are comfortable

within their bubbles. Like my husband was very good with just sort of living inside this rarefied world. Because if you are a celebrity and you have the money, then you make your bubble inside really nice. It sounds melancholy about being famous. There's like a sadness about it. And I don't know if it's the isolation or there's something that sounds blue. I feel like my fame prevented me from being able to connect to the world and to people, which is really genuinely

what I enjoy the most. But look at what you're doing now. Well, I get to connect now. Yeah. Why you were so excited to write a book in three months though because this was like

freeing and liberating for you. At the time though, why did you feel, I mean, from the outlook you can understand why, but why do you feel like now is different?

Because I have wrinkles on my face and because I look 57 and that somehow apparently humanizes me enough so that people don't just see me as a paper doll anymore. From everything that you're telling me, there would be something like very relaxing about getting to 57 and being able to tell your story on your own terms without anyone micromanaging you and telling you how to move your body and where to stand.

No, it's not relaxing. It's empowering. Empowering. Yes. Yes, absolutely. I've never felt more powerful than I do now. That is really crazy and cool to hear from one of the world's top supermodels. Like that's cool that you feel more empowered at 57. Absolutely. let me tell you about your one-stop shop for everything wellness okay this is aloe moves they have yoga they have mindfulness they have bar pilates cardio hit classes even self-care like you guys they have gua sha and dry brushing tutorials they They have face yoga, which I'm very much about, nutrition classes, all the things. They even have meditation, like five-minute meditation. I am such a big fan of

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So at what point did you decide that you were going to take the narrative into your own hands and write this book and empower yourself? Where was the epiphany in all of this? I wish that I would, I could tell you that I've had epiphanies, but everything in my life seems to be, seems to happen sort of haphazardly. It's, things happen to me. Look, my, my marriage started dying when I was turning 50. My, I started becoming invisible to my husband. I started becoming invisible in society at large as an aging woman. And I had no idea what to do with that information. It's like I was losing my identity as a wife and as a model and as everything. And I had no idea which way to turn. I had no idea what to do. And I thought, okay, well, so, you know, okay, so I'll write. I'll

try to write another novel. It's the only thing I can do. And then my husband died. That's when my life went to shit. There was the tragedy of his death, the trauma of finding him dead. You personally found him. I've personally found him.

I went to get him his morning cup of coffee because I was taking care of him. He just had surgery. And we were separated at this point. We were divorcing. But still there's love. As best friends. We still lived in the same house.

We still went to dinners together and parties together. But as two single people. I thought we had found the perfect solution to the end of our marriage. And then he died. And then maybe two days later, I found out that he had cut me off in his will, cut me out of his will, claiming that I had abandoned him. All of this stacked on top of each other was, it was a lot. It was kind of too much for me to process all at one time. And I was,

so I was drowning. I was literally just drowning in pain. And then COVID came up and I had to sell my house and prices in New York had gone off the cliff and I had to sell and I had to sell at a huge loss. And this was the only money I had was in the house. So like things sucked. So all of that sort of served to, it felt like, you know, it felt like somebody had handed me a hand grenade and just, and it blew up my entire life as I knew it. When you're taking care of your husband and you're bringing him coffee in bed and he passes away and then you find out that he's cut you out of your will there's that's betrayal a lot like it's got to feel did you feel like you were angry it's hard to be angry at someone who's died but was there an anger there or did you just feel freedom that he had gone oh my god freedom i spent 35 years with this man he was most important person in my life

he was my north star there was his death was was the end of me as i knew me and then his betrayal was an end of everything I had learned and believed. The fact that I believed that he loved me like I loved him and that we had 35 years of love, that it put a complete, you know, it made that, it turned that into sort of a farce. Like, oh yeah, that was just in my imagination. He didn't see it the same way. Was there an incident or a set of incidents that kind of maybe set him off or angered him for him to do that? If there were, he didn't tell me. Maybe he felt like the divorce. Maybe that's what he just felt with the divorce. Look, one can make all kinds of assumptions.

The problem is they will never be answered. And he did not let me in on any of it. He just smiled and acted as though we were best friends and everything was great. So this is a personal question. So if you can look back on this 35 is such fondness, but then this happens, how do you now look back on that time with him? Because obviously it sounds like this was the majority of your life. Yeah, it was my entire life. But look, it's three years now since my husband passed. And I think I was sort of insane for the first year. But like, I honestly don't remember large parts of the first year because I was kind of flipping between grief

and anger, grief and anger. When I was angry, I would be angry. And then when I stopped being angry, I would be grieving. So it was like, there was no light. It was just a shit show all the way around. And then as I started sort of, I feel like I started swimming towards the shore, you know, year two, slowly, slowly and painfully. And, and it's like, yes, now it's three years later. And, and I will never get my answers. This is not going to happen. I will never, I will never know why he did this. I will never know what was in his mind. I don't know if it was bad advice from his lawyers, if it was a temporary thing, if he just messed up. And so all I can make out of it is a choice on how I'm going to see it. And I'm choosing to see it as almost a crime of passion that,

because I do know that when you no longer love somebody, you just walk away. And I think being vindictive means you still care. So I'm taking that as he still cared. He couldn't somehow let me know. He didn't know how. But this came from a place of misplaced love. And so that's how I'm going to think about it. You mentioned when you got with him that the bubbles merged together. With him gone, you're in your own bubble, but it feels like you've popped the bubble with this book. It

feels like you're sharing your stories and you're escaping the bubble and there's no more isolation for you. It feels like you're sharing these stories with the world. Is this like a real moment for you where you can, I mean, this should be like a liberating moment i would think absolutely it absolutely is but it started with my instagram where i sort of took to when i when i was in the deepest grief and i was losing my mind and i posted some videos of myself sobbing, which in retrospect are pretty hard to watch. Was that the first stuff you started posting? No, I mean, I posted like random stuff before my husband's death.

I was just like, oh, hello, you know, here I am wearing this and, you know, holding a broom, whatever, just normal life stuff. After my husband's death, I just went all out, kind of just let my heart hang out because I was so lonely and I was so sad and I was drowning. And I wanted to see if I could connect to somebody, anybody. It was COVID too. It's like my friends were in trouble. Their parents were dying. It's like, you know, and I was so isolated. So I reached out on Instagram and people held me. People came and held my hand. I remember when this happened, you almost went

viral too, I think because you broke through. When you look at a supermodel, you think they have the perfect life. You think, oh, if someone's beautiful, they have the perfect life. They have everything going for them. And I think for you to get on there and be real with what you were going through was like such a moment on social media too it humanized it humanized yeah and i think that this book is like an extension of that for you well once once i got a little bit once i got humanized a little bit on instagram it sort of started opening my world out. Yes. Like people are listening to me. They're not just looking at me. They're, they're actually listening to what I say. And my Instagram posts are often, you know, they're just pictures to say, Hey, come this way.

And then there's texts to bring you into how I feel, what I'm thinking about. And the book is an extension of that. Yeah. Sounds like your life has really come full circle, though. Not quite yet. Things I'm still working out. Well, the book, I mean, I think is a beautiful thing for you. Where can everyone find your book? Where can they come see you? How can they support what you're doing? You can buy the book, hopefully in any bookstore in the United States or order it from your favorite bookstore. It's certainly on Amazon. I recorded an audio version of it with my voice. It's on Kindle. So it's everywhere where books are. My book can be found. And what's your

Instagram? Paulina Poroskov. Leave off the A. I don't know why somebody's too long for yeah somebody leave off the a for extra savings yeah that's my handle and that's where i am and i i try to read all the comments every day of my of uh the people that are there with me because they've they've stuck by me and they've held my hand and sometimes i've held theirs I've actually made like real actual real life friends from Instagram. It's amazing. It's like the world is such a beautiful big place if you just look around. Paulina, thank you for coming on.

I know your book is going to absolutely crush it. And you guys go follow Paulina on Instagram with no A. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hey guys, wait, don't go. Thank you. episode with Paulina on my latest post at Lauren Bostic. We are definitely going to pick a winner next week and we're picking three winners to win a diamond tennis bracelet. So exciting. Make sure you check out Paulina's book and I hope you have a happy holiday season and we will see you next time. Quick break to talk to all the shopaholics out there, all the online shoppers that have a ton

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