Linda Evangelista (born May 10, 1965) is a
Canadian model. She has been featured on over 600 magazine covers and has garnered work on countless modeling assignments with companies, most recently with
L'Oréal.
Evangelista was born to Italian parents who emigrated to Canada and was raised in a working-class, traditional Roman Catholic family in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, where she attended Denis Morris Catholic High School. She knew she wanted to become a model when she was 12 years old. Evangelista began modelling when she was discovered by a talent agent at the 1978 Miss Teen Niagara beauty pageant.
Evangelista later moved to New York City and signed with Elite Model Management there. She then moved to Paris to further her career. She also appeared in music videos with George Michael.
Evangelista jokingly uttered the quote, "We don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day",(often misquoted as: "We don't get out of bed for less than..." or "I don't get out of bed for less than...") Spoken in Vogue (1990) to Jonathan van Meter, talking about money and how she and a few other models were calling the shots and changing the game.
In the late 1980s, she cut all her hair off to brandish a little-boy-style haircut and was promptly cancelled from all the important runway shows that season. This was the first of many dramatic hairstyle changes. Within months, she appeared on magazine covers everywhere and many women emulated the hairstyle.
In 2007, she signed a multiple-year exclusive contract with the cosmetics company L'Oreal Paris. It was announced in early 2008 that she would be featured in the Prada Fall 2008 campaign seen in magazines internationally.
She is signed to DNA Model Management in New York City, and Models 1 in London.
In June, 2010, the New York Post announced that Evangelista will be the new face of Talbots.
At the age of 22, Evangelista married Elite executive Gerald Marie, who was many years older than Evangelista. They were married from 1987 to 1993, but only saw each other on occasion as Evangelista traveled the world as one of the top supermodels.
After separating from Marie in 1993, she began a 6-year relationship with actor Kyle MacLachlan, and then divorced Marie. There were rumors that the two were engaged.
Throughout her career, Evangelista expressed her desire to have children. In 1999, she became pregnant by French soccer player, Fabien Barthez. At 6 months pregnant, she delivered a stillborn baby which devastated her. The couple then broke up and Evangelista left modeling for several years to recoup.
On October 11, 2006, she gave birth to a boy, Augustin James, refusing to name his biological father, sparking rumors. While pregnant, Evangelista appeared on the August 2006 issue of Vogue magazine. She was the first non-actress/singer model to appear on Vogue in over a year. On July 1st, 2011, it was confirmed that Francois Henri Pinault is the father of her son.
Around 2007, Evangelista began dating Hard Rock Café founder Peter Morton, who was 19 years her senior. In November 2009, she was seen with a ring on her engagement finger sparking rumors of an impending marriage. In October 2010, it was reported that Evangelista and Morton broke up at the end of summer 2010. In July 2011, The New York Post reported that Evangelista's child was fathered by billionaire Frenchman François-Henri Pinault, the husband of actress Salma Hayek
Labels:
Canadian Model,
Linda Evangelista
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