Paulina Porizkova has insisted that having wrinkles does not make her "ugly."
Paulina Porizkova on the beauty of getting older
The 57-year-old Swedish model was married to singer Ric Ocasek - with whom she has children Jonathan, 28, and 24-year-old Oliver - from 1989 until he died at the age of 75 in 2019 and suddenly found herself "without a career" and "ignored by the population" but insisted that her aging face is not a sign of ugliness.
She said: "Before my husband died our marriage had disintegrated and we were already separated for two years and we were going through a divorce and the invisibility to my husband coincided with my invisibility to the rest of the world. was suddenly a divorced woman who had no career, had no way of making money and also was completely ignored by the population at large I thought that was not cool because I’m actually a lot cooler now than I was 20 years ago. I am way smarter. I have more patience. I’m more intellectually curious. I’m more generous. Everything about me is better. But I have wrinkles and that does not make me ugly. I just thought that’s unfair."
The former 'America's Next Top Model' judge - who was the first Central European woman to appear on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue in 1984 aged just 18 - added that for women who have gone through the "grey divorce", it is "not fair" that they remain unwanted when trying to "reclaim themselves" within the world.
She told WWD: "I think it’s a little easier to say, you know, but for the rest of us, for women who’ve gone through the gray divorce, which is now getting more and more prevalent, and then are out in the world maybe you did spend your time taking care of your kids and your family and now you’re reclaiming yourself and nobody wants you. Not fair and not cool."
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