Written By: admin // Filed Under: // Date: Mar 16, 2014 // Comments: 0

Luella Bartley Fashion Show during Fashion Week in New York

Supermodel Gisele Bündchen lives a simple life – just dogs, horses and karaoke, she tells fashion designer Luella Bartley

“In 10 years, I’m going to be living in Brazil on my farm with all my little animals, a cabana with a fireplace, on a huge piece of land, with tall trees everywhere and horses and about 15 dogs all running around. I’m going to wake up in the morning, swim in my beautiful lake and then ride my horses, just like my grandmother did.”

What about your modelling career?
“Oh, it’ll be all over.”

Gisele Bündchen said this to me three years ago, when I interviewed her for a special issue of Big magazine, devoted entirely to her. It simultaneously pre-empted and cemented her status as a supermodel.

Three years on, the plan remains unchanged, right down to the number of children she is going to have: “Two girls, one boy. The boy will be older, so he can protect his sisters and they can go out with his friends.”

Gisele is now 21. She has a five-year contract with Victoria’s Secret which is said to be worth $24 million and her face is on the cover of at least two magazines a month. She owns a house in Los Angeles and an apartment in New York. Her ex-boyfriends include actor Josh Hartnett and model Scott Barnhill – the current man in her life is Leonardo DiCaprio. She has plenty of money, Hollywood scripts falling into her mailbox at a rate of knots and, most famously of all, a perfect body.
She also has wholesome values to match her looks. She doesn’t drink or do drugs. She loves animals and keeps horses. She doesn’t go out much (preferring to stay in and read books) and has a loving family in Brazil. She has enough curves to keep the diet police at bay and hasn’t bared her breasts, even though Playboy has apparently offered her between $1.5 million and $5 million.

Last time I interviewed Gisele, I spent a relaxed week just hanging out with her – on shoots, in studios, and in cars to and from her fairly modest hotel in Notting Hill. This time, she is in LA, where she now lives (“Los Angeles is quieter and you get more privacy”) and, once we start to chat, it’s obvious that the girl hasn’t changed a bit.

“There is a beach and I have my horses here,” she says. “I was living in New York, but I haven’t walked down a New York street for ages. I can’t really do that stuff any more.” She’s not exaggerating. Gisele is perhaps more famous than any other model at this moment.

It’s no bad thing that she doesn’t go out much. It helps to maintain the illusion that she is a fantasy figure – something that models usually can’t sustain. Once they are spotted drunk in a nightclub, the illusion soon shatters.

In terms of fame, the only comparable figure is Kate Moss. But, in reality, she and Gisele are completely different, and it must come down to differences in how British and American celebrities behave and are perceived. Kate Moss is one of Britain’s biggest names, but she is as likely to be seen in some sweaty dive watching a cool band as she is to be photographed at the Oscars. Gisele’s only foray into the seedy music world was playing the part of a rock star in the pages of Vogue.

Fame has obviously affected the girl from Brazil, but in a very American way. She accepts that things have changed for her, but claims that her life is still normal. Dealing with the public has become hard, though, and recent events seem to have put her off trying to integrate.

“A couple of nights ago, I went to this club,” she says. “We drove there, but it was so awful that we decided to leave after 10 minutes,” she says. “The car had been valet-parked and so we had to wait outside for it. Then, this guy came up to me and I kind of recognised him, so we started talking. And then another boy came up and asked me to sign some pictures. He had tons of photographs and kept asking me to sign more. And, suddenly, there were all these guys around me, so I got a bit nervous and said politely that I wouldn’t sign any more. Then they got to be really nasty and were screaming at me: ‘You’re a whore’ and stuff like that. Stupid people. I hate this stuff, but I guess there are good and bad sides to the position I’m in now.”

“There are two kinds of people in this industry,” she adds. “The people who do it because they want to be famous and the people who do it as a job and go home afterwards. I see what I do as just a job. I’m no better than anyone just because I’m famous. I just want to be a good person, but people automatically want to make it a different thing. People make up this crazy stuff about your life and they think they have a right to judge you. It’s awful.”

Having a well-known boyfriend can’t help. She started dating DiCaprio last year and there is constant speculation about whether they are going to tie the knot.

“Everyone always talks about when I’m going to get married,” she says. “It’s always in the papers that I’m engaged or whatever. But I’m 21 and there are other things to do first – other adventures to have.”

The last time I interviewed Gisele, she was still dating Scott Barnhill and talking about settling down. Three years and a few boyfriends later, her life plan hasn’t really changed. She still wants to settle down – eventually. “But, you know, there have been three boys since the last time I spoke to you and two of them have got married – I mean, what’s going on?” she asks. “My exes, they don’t like me. They don’t want to look at my face. I don’t know why.” When I suggest that having Gisele as an ex rather than a current girlfriend might be a little hard on a young lad, she whines, in her Brazilian schoolgirl drawl: “No, Luella. I wanna be friends. But they won’t be friends with me. Maybe one day they will be able to talk to me again.”

There’s a kind of naivety to Gisele that I can’t quite figure out. Does she even think she is beautiful? “I’m happy,” she says, avoiding the question. “I’m a simple person. I love my dogs and my horses and my house and being comfortable and quiet. And now, my life can become a bit simpler. I don’t travel so much any more and I don’t have to work every day. Quality of life is important to me and now I don’t have to be a slave to work. Just the good stuff.”

So what does she consider to be the “good stuff”? Acting, perhaps? According to rumours, she was offered Lucy Liu’s part in Charlie’s Angels.

“Scripts and stuff come all the time – crazy offers come, which I love. I love adventures and if it sounds like fun, I’m going to try it. I’d be stupid not to.”

She’s not worried about being seen as a model-turned-whatever. So, how about singing, then? “I make my neighbours crazy with my new karaoke machine,” she says. “And I love to dance, too. But I think it should probably be kept behind closed doors. If I sing, I will break somebody’s windows. But I love music.”

For the moment, though, her future is in modelling, although there’ll be a lot less catwalk work.

“It’s too tiring. It’s too much,” she sighs. “I will do Dolce & Gabbana and Gaultier, but nothing else. Although, I do miss it. My favourite thing is to walk down the runway. It’s so exciting. I still get butterflies in my stomach about the music and the walking. But the fitting and everything else – it’s too much. I don’t want to have that stress any more.”

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