Herzigova then proceeds to do something very un-model-like. She tucks into a bread roll and orders a huge plate of pasta, which she finishes. She’s obviously not a follower of the Atkins diet, but throughout her 15-year career, Herzigova’s weight has been a subject of hot debate. Last year, she hit the headlines after pictures were published showing her looking painfully thin, covered in a fine down of hair (anorexics often develop this), with cold sores around her mouth. Had the once-voluptuous pin-up gone too far in pursuit of a fashionable physique?
“I was not happy about that,” she says of the spate of stories, denying there was any truth in them. “You might be too thin for one person and too fat for another. I think, ‘Just be yourself.’ I am a healthy, happy person,” she insists. Certainly she doesn’t look unhealthy from where I’m sitting, but then I wouldn’t say she was exactly glowing with health, either. “I’ve been working seven days a week. Monday to Friday, I do my swimwear range. Modelling and movies are at the weekend,” she says. “I’m tired, but it’s good.”
Of course, Herzigova is no thinner than any other fashion model, but the reason her weight excites so much interest is that she found fame as the curvaceous Wonderbra girl. Back then, she says, her curves were “puppy fat. I was 17 when I was spotted — I had a different physique. I was young and voluptuous and totally exhibitionist and outgoing”. Losing her curves, she says, was just the way her body changed in the growing-up process, part of which was a stressful marriage to Tico Torres, the Bon Jovi drummer, which ended in a painful divorce after two years.
Herzigova never regained her curves. “You change, you mature. It was never intentional for me to lose weight,” she claims. “I have a fast metabolism. I didn’t do anything to lose weight. In a way, I’m not a true woman, obviously, because every woman has a weight problem, and I don’t. I eat what I want, but I eat healthily. I would never eat a kilo of cheese,” she jokes. “I don’t get along with women when I speak like this, because I’m probably not even typical of 1% of the female population, so it’s hard for me to be understood.”
But it is no coincidence that her body changed when she decided to take her career in a high-fashion direction. Curves are a lingerie model’s best asset, but fashion models are a different breed. They are all a uniformly slender size 8 or 10, because that’s the size high-fashion samples are made in.
Advertisement
“I didn’t want to do the whole lingerie thing,” she says. “I wanted that Louis Vuitton image. The edgy, high-fashion image.” In an effort to escape the New Monroe tag that marked her early career, Herzigova even dyed her famous blonde tresses brown. “That was my favourite time in my career,” she says. It could have been a financial disaster, but instead the fashion world embraced her new look. She bagged the coveted Calvin Klein ad campaign and several more high-profile ones followed, including Louis Vuitton and Chanel. Most recently, she has been signed up by the upmarket jewellery house Chopard. “When I was voluptuous, I was working just fine. Now I am not voluptuous, and I get lots of work,” she says. Which tells you all you need to know about the fashion industry.
Yet there is more to Herzigova than her weight. She hasn’t been sitting down for long when a swarthy Italian man on the next table tries to take a sneaky picture of her. She spots the paparazzo pest and asks him in fluent Italian to leave her alone. She also speaks French, Russian and English, as well as her native Czech. No dumb blonde, and as if to prove it, her career is branching out. She is designing a swimwear range that she hopes it will grow into a big fashion brand. “I’m thinking about expanding into shoes and bags. I’d love to do sunglasses and body products, and build a retreat. You have to have big dreams, and I’m very ambitious.” Herzigova is also moving into acting, but unlike other models, this career change might have legs. She has just finished playing the part of Picasso’s wife in the new Andy Garcia vehicle, Modigliani, and garnered good reviews at the Cannes film festival. Her next project is the lead in a big-budget Hollywood thriller, opposite Val Kilmer.
So, will the move from model to actress ease the scrutiny of her body? Herzigova doesn’t think so. “It’s not just my body that’s been scrutinised. Every woman’s body becomes a subject as soon as she is famous. It’s like Kate Winslet or Charlize Theron or Daryl Hannah — everyone talks about each pound off or on. It’s even worse for an actress. Every actress has done something to themselves. They are so scared to age.”
So she wouldn’t change anything about herself? “I’m not afraid of ageing, and I’m not into plastic surgery. I don’t want to have things moved around.”
It is part of the reason she has decided not to move to LA. “It’s wrong to go there and expect something from it. It’s better to focus yourself outside of that, then they can come to you.”
Advertisement
Forget “Hello, boys!” — these days, it’s “Hello, Hollywood!”