How Do You Survive a High-Pressure Industry? Ask Kim Alexis

Ever wonder what it’s really like to become a supermodel in the 1970s? Kim Alexis started as a teen swimmer with a pharmacy plan and quickly rose to fame. She shares how she was discovered, navigated charm school, and survived the whirlwind of NYC, Paris, and magazine covers.

Kim gets real about the pressures behind the runway: weight comments, Studio 54 culture, and why learning to say no kept her grounded. She also reveals the health and wellness habits that work for her today, from hydration and clean eating to infrared saunas and hormone therapy.

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Which part of Kim’s journey surprises you most?

Transcript

Nervous Introduction And Color Talk

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Okay, so welcome to our podcast. This is a little bit different today because this podcast is a spin-off of our radio show. I'm really nervous to interview you, Kim Alexis. I really am. Uh-oh. In fact, so much so, I have to tell you a couple things that went into so far. Like my outfit today, I've changed three times. Um, I was so nervous. I met this woman, which you would probably love. She's from England, and she went to this um university of fashion or something in England. And I and what she does is does your colors. Have you heard of this before? I'm sure because you're in uh obviously, you know, one of the best.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Are you a summer? Are you an autumn?

SPEAKER_00 0:51

I'm a soft autumn.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Right?

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

So, in fact, do you remember when we a couple like a couple hours ago I took a picture of you? I sent it to her. And I was like, Oh, I'm interviewing Kim Alexis right now. And she's like, Oh my god, the supermodel, my cat.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

And then she goes, Am I summer? I think I'm summer.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

I don't know where you are. You should you you should meet her. You would love her. She says, so I sent her this picture of you in this other office. She was gorgeous. You see how she's wearing color closest to her face and black away from her. You had the black away. Was that on purpose? No.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

That's a big hell no. No, no, no. No.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Because I was like, no, because fashion, no.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Sports, yes. Fitness, sports, anything.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

What do you mean fashion? No. You're like the big one of the biggest supermodels of all time.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

I didn't really, I grew up a um a tomboy. I never studied fashion. I didn't have any magazines. I didn't know how to pluck my eyebrows. I didn't know how to put makeup on, nothing.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

You were just beautiful and then discovered?

SPEAKER_02 1:45

I didn't know any of that. Well, did you have a can't get me to say that either.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Did you grow up with brothers and sisters?

SPEAKER_02 1:51

I grew up with one sister.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Older or younger?

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Younger.

Tomboy Beginnings And Getting Discovered

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Okay. So how do you go from because you know you swam in high school, how do you how do you get discovered? How does that happen?

SPEAKER_02 1:59

It happens differently now for everybody because there's so many talent scouts out there or model scouts out there. And in fact, one of them went to my school when my son Bobby, my middle son, who's now 36, he came home from high school. He's like, Mom, there was this person here and she wants me to go and like be a model. I'm like, wait, give me that number. What do you mean? Like, if do you want a model? He's like, I don't know. They were talking about how great it is and how much money you can make. I'm like, wait a minute. Okay, let's talk about this. Do you want me to pursue this further? Because I will call people in New York. I can get you in wherever you want to go. You've never talked about it before. So I ended up calling that talent scout and she's doing the whole sales pitch or whatever they do, right? And finally I said, Do you know who I am? And I said my name. She's like, Oh, okay. And she hung up the phone.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Was she a real? She was legit though?

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Yeah, yeah. Okay, because I think there's a lot of the weird things. So they get a commission from cute kids that sign up, and the modeling agencies pay money for you to do a portfolio and spend all this money with photography and have the book an eight by ten, not your little So you gotta you gotta pay.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

I remember you gotta pay photographers to do stuff for you.

Charm School To New York Contract

SPEAKER_02 3:06

I didn't. So when I was a senior in high school, I early on in my senior year had already been enrolled. I thought I wanted to be a pharmacist. So I was enrolled at the University of Rhode Island. I was already on their swim team. So now it's the fall of my senior year. I've already got this handled, right? So I'm taking trigonometry, college calculus. I am um in the college in the the um marching band and the concert band. I'm swimming five and a half hours a day before school and after school. I'm working in a drugstore for$1.98 an hour. And so I thought, okay, well, I'd like to make a little bit more than$38 a week, which is my big paycheck. And so someone said, Well, you're pretty, you look like Sybil Shepard. I'm like, I don't know who that is, but what difference does that make? And they're like, Well, modeling, that, you know, you could make a lot of money modeling. I thought, okay, well, I wanted to make pocket change. So when I went to college, I didn't have to ask my dad. My dad was a chemical engineer and did very well, but I didn't want to be reliant on him. I wanted to be independent. So I in Buffalo in the winter, I enrolled. First, I went to try and get into the modeling agency to start making money. They were like, oh no, no, no, you have to go through this class first. So I had to, my mother spent like six or eight hundred bucks, wrote a check. Back then, this is 1978, it's like a charm school. And um went through this charm school, would literally show up with wet hair. So felt like a fish out of water because of swimming. Yes. And these girls were like, they were all done their thing and they were all dressed and they had their little portfolios and their bags and their makeup. And I'm like, what? Yeah, I didn't know any of that stuff, right? So one night this little guy's in the corner and he's like staring at me like this. And the owner of the whole agency calls me into her office. Now I walked in the way you're proper, the way you're supposed to walk in, and it's almost back. Remember the books on your head when you walk? It was almost that. So I walk in there, I think, she's gonna kick me out. She's gonna kick me out. I don't belong here, right? She's like, How would you like to go to New York City to model? I said, No, I'm gonna be a pharmacist. So I said no five times. I turned them down five times, like in the next one.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Had you already taken pictures? Like they saw you on film. No, they just saw you in person, and they're like, Wow.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Yep, I wouldn't let them take pictures because I'm like, why? I'm gonna be a pharmacist.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

So just your look.

Fast Rise To Covers And Castings

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Right. Wow. So then he said, Let me just take pictures. So he takes pictures, I will show them to you later. They're hysterical. And my parents were on a cruise somewhere, so my grandmother's watching me, right? So I don't even know who did my hair. I had this big knot in my head and of this hair, like this rose in my hair from my hair. And I'm like, you know, doing these things, didn't know what I was doing. And he sent them to New York City. And John Casablancas had just come from Paris. He's breaking into New York City, he's competing with Eileen Ford. He wanted new bodies, new flesh. And so he literally made a Discover a model day, flew to Buffalo because he wanted to see me, and paraded me in front of those girls, offered me a contract, and those same girls that I thought that I didn't that I felt intimidated and didn't belong with now are looking at me like she got the contract. And all the girls, so John's sitting there, and he's had all the girls that had their books parade up with me next to him, and he'd see he'd look at their books to see, because that's what you do when you're looking for it's not demo tape, it's it's physical pictures, right? So he would look at those and he'd say, So what do you think of her? And I'm like, I don't know, she's pretty to me. I I don't know. But he didn't pick anyone else, he picked me. So then so I finished high school at 17, and then two days later went to New York, I turned 18 in July and went to New York City. Two days later was in Rome in Paris for the collections. And then four days later had my first magazine cover.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

What? What was the magazine cover?

SPEAKER_02 7:01

Italian Bazaar.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

What so what are your are your parents going, what's happening like I mean that so from when you went to to the the the the the meeting the first time to the magazine cover, is that two months?

SPEAKER_02 7:12

Is that so I went, I got John came to Buffalo in March, and then I graduated school at back in Buffalo where you graduate in June.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

But was he would he call call you? Hey, you're still in, right? You still excited about this, right? They're just making it.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

I think I signed a contract because he had to guarantee me money. My dad wanted a guarantee. He said she's skipping college, so he made them sign something that he would guarantee me a certain amount of money each week.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

So you go, you do the cover, and then what? It just I mean, you're no do you still go back home to Buffalo?

SPEAKER_02 7:44

Are you I did every couple so you first you do a lot of ghosts back then? We called them ghose, now they call them casting calls. Uh so you're traveling around New York City in the hot summer and you're going to all these different photography studios to show them your book. Well, all I had was like one or two little pictures or Polaroids, and that's how you started. They might have a job with Sears catalog, or they might have something somewhere and they needed they wanted to try a new girl. And that's how I started.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

So you would be in Sears? You were in everything?

SPEAKER_02 8:17

I don't know. I just Sears came out of my head.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

But pictures are just there's pictures. You do a deal, magazines buy your pictures, they're everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

Well, yeah. So the agency, they they would the photographer if he liked you. And many a times when you're going to meet them, the ones that kind of went like this and like, yeah, looking at your book, and they'd go like this and hand your book back without looking at you. Now, meanwhile, you've traveled all around New York City or in a subway or hot car or whatever it is, and you're all excited to show up there and like not.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

They don't give you the time of day.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

They don't give you the time of day, don't look you in the eye. Those are the ones that booked me. The ones that didn't book me are the ones, so, so how is it like? What are you doing? Where did you live? You know, once on. And I think it's because they felt bad because they dragged me all that way there. It seemed like the ones that did this, they already had their mind made up the second I walked in the door.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Did you ever become friends with any of these people? Like later eventually photographers? No, the people that picked you, like the whoever the decision maker was, you eventually got to see them at different photo shoots and they knew uh not the agent.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

I mean, this is the agent that owned the agencies in Paris and New York, and then worked with the other ones in like Milan and Paris and stuff. So no, I mean, not friends. I mean, I've done documentaries with him. I did party, you'd go to parties and have all of his girls.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

At the time that you're doing this, is there anybody else that's well known doing what you're doing? Is there anybody you're looking up to that you met and you're like, oh, oh my God, you're you're a year ahead of me. What what am what am I what's next?

SPEAKER_02 9:45

Kind of, I kept my mouth shut and I cried a lot the first two years because I was so green and I felt like I didn't belong in the business. Oh, yes. Like you don't walk like that. It's fashion. Darling, what are you thinking? That's the big that's that's what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

What are you thinking because of what you're wearing or because of the way you're all of it?

SPEAKER_02 10:04

They do this when you'd walk into a room and just look you up and down like did he ever say you need to do more squats or you need to not back in 1978.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Right. No. But were there who were the other models in your world at the time that were doing that?

Rejection, Cruelty, And Survival Skills

SPEAKER_02 10:20

So uh the ones you would know probably uh either I didn't a lot of times you were by yourself on a shoot. You know, you were by yourself on a booking. So I was by myself a lot. And every day you'd go to a different studio. Every day there would be different clients, every day there'd be different lunch and different everything. So you never got used to, oh, it's the same studio. I know it's gonna take me 18 minutes to get there. I can take the C train and you know, none of that because it was always a new place, a new time, new people. You didn't know if you're gonna have a great lunch or if you should have brought something with you.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

Is there a moment in your modeling career that stands out as an awesome moment? And then a moment that stands out that you're like, God, I get sick to my stomach when I think of that.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Yeah, there was tons of them. Um best moment, probably when I got my first Vogue cover, and it took me a year to get that because then I felt like, oh, I think I made it.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Yeah, vogue.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

I think I made it. I at that point turned down my college, and a year went by so fast. I'm like, wait, what do you mean? Like it's already September and they want to know if I'm coming back.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

So I'm about a moment where you cried and you were miserable and you came out.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

All the time.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Really? It's that sad. All the time. You're like in the in the what we all think is glamorous and awesome, and it was For me, because I never dreamed of it.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

I didn't want to be a model. I didn't want to be in that business. I knew nothing about the business. I felt like it wasn't. I mean, you look at me and it's like fat high fashion is not at the top of my list. I dress very sporty and just love being comfortable and ready to run or move or do something.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Were there any tricks in it? You know how like back in the day you say you put preparation age on your eyes? Was there any tricks in that modeling did back then?

SPEAKER_02 12:03

Well, back then we so you'd see other girls, they weren't be necessarily at your bookings with you, but you'd talk to them or whatever. And so they'd be like, Oh, I'm gonna try this cleanse or I'm gonna do this facial. And I'm like, wait, really, how? What do you do? And so we'd all learn from each other. Here I am, 18, and I'm like worried about wrinkles, you know. So, and take doing all these weird cleanses like lemon juice and vinegar or something awful.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

I remember that stuff. Yeah. So, what was the biggest modeling thing that happened to you? The cover vogue? I mean, and how many times that happened? Because you've been on more magazine covers like anybody in the world, I think, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:39

I've been on a lot. Um, I say one of my biggest modeling uh pivotal moments was probably signing my contract with Ultima 2. So I replaced Lauren Hutton as the Ultimate 2 girl for Revlon.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Oh, Lauren Hutton with the little Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

So I was the girl after her.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Now, did you ever pick her brain? Were you like No, I never met her.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

I've never met her.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Wow. Are you at all in a group chat with all these extra supermodels?

SPEAKER_02 13:07

No, like I don't even know how to set up a group chat.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

You don't talk, do you talk to other the other people? Because there's so many famous models.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

I mean, you were like you were like I talked to some of some of the other girls. There's a couple that I keep in in contact with.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Like when I think of the famous models, right? The supermodels, when did that start? Was it the 80s when the supermodels started?

SPEAKER_02 13:25

Well, it had to have started in the 70s. And guys would know it more from sports illustrated swimsuits, and those I think started in the 70s. But I remember like Cheryl Teague's see, because she did the Fishnet swimsuits.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

And then Farrah Fawcett and Cindy Crawford's and Cindy's younger. The Christy Turlington's and you and Paulina Horsakova.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Yeah, her and Carol Alt.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Carol Alt, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

And you're Carol, I'm having on my show in a couple weeks.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02 13:53

Yeah, yeah. So she's one I keep in touch with and I stay with her when we go to New York.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Was there everybody anybody just one person that stands out to that was really mean to you? Oh, lots of people. But then there's not one. It's like, and you got revenge, or you like I'm not a revenge person.

SPEAKER_02 14:07

No, no, no. But I'm telling you, there was just a lot of instances. A lot of times it was your stylists, though they were the people that would pull the clothes, bring them on the rack, dress you, put on your earrings or whatever. Oops, sorry, whatever you were doing. And so uh they were just the mean ones. They'd be like, honey, maybe you shouldn't eat lunch today or something.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

So did you go on extreme diets? Because all this led to, I mean, you're like a health and fitness person now. Did you you what's the most extreme thing you did?

SPEAKER_02 14:37

Well, I did Atkins because back in 78 to go to New York. So when I when John Casablancas came in March in Buffalo to discover me and sign me, I'm finishing high school. But now he said before he left seven words that changed my life. You need to lose 15 pounds.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Whoa.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

I was swimming five and a half hours a day. I'm five foot ten, 145 pounds of muscle, and I had to lose weight. So immediately in my mind, I'm like, I'm not good enough. I'm not good enough to go to New York.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

So he doesn't tell you how to do it. No, he says you need to lose 15 pounds in three.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

Back then in 78, all they had was Atkins, right? That's all that was out there.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

All the protein, the cheese, the meat, and get the batteries.

SPEAKER_02 15:19

And they're like, if you're hungry, have some bacon. I'm like, I don't want bacon, I want an apple.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

So you did that.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

Oh, yeah, I did that. So my sister would eat whatever she wanted, and I'd say, just breathe on me. So I would like smell like a cookie or whatever she was eating, right? Like, just let me smell.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

How long did you live with that diet lifestyle? I mean, you were a supermodel for how long?

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Uh that term wasn't out yet.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Oh, it wasn't?

SPEAKER_02 15:46

No, that term took it's interesting if someone can trace back the first time it was ever used. I started July of 78, and I bet you the term came out in '84, '83, '84. And at this point, I'm already with Ultima 2.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

You're already one of the biggest models of all time.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

I mean, right, but we didn't know it.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

Because there's no social media, and it was, I mean, it wasn't like you were counting each other's covers saying, oh, well, I got this.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

But are you making crazy money?

SPEAKER_02 16:15

I was making within that first year from seven uh from July through the end of the year, I made more money than my school teachers. Now I literally had graduated high school end of June go to New York City mid-July. So in three weeks, I went from having coaches, parents that I lived under, and teachers, right? Answering to them to all of a sudden living in New York City by myself at 18, doing whatever I wanted.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Like an apartment? Like you had your own apartment?

SPEAKER_02 16:45

So we had a models apartment for three months until you could make enough money to go get your own. And I remember crying there because I didn't I was never alone before. I always had my mom and my sister.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

You had roommates?

SPEAKER_02 16:57

No, I didn't. I just had a studio apartment by myself.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

That's crazy. Is there has anyone pitched like a movie on your life or anything? And we even got we even got to the the other stuff, but I mean, like anything just that part seems so crazy.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

But the it's weird how you just I mean, I could have done anything, could have gone anywhere, right? Could have been, I was in the strangest, most bizarre situations. Your mother could never prepare you for. Like, if this happens, then you're in this thing in this studio here, and this guy does this. This is when you run. You didn't know those things.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

So you had stuff happen to you where guys I had lots of stuff happen. Well, what's something terrible? Like, what did a guy do to you? Like, what are you trying?

SPEAKER_02 17:37

They never got very far. I really realized quickly that I was gonna punch him in the face. And I grew up with just a sister, I didn't have brothers, I was never really physical, but I'm like, I'm not putting up with that shit. And guys, you know guys sense that in women, right? But I didn't know that at 18. I just knew I'm not doing that.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

Was there a lot of uh drugs and all that stuff with the behind the scenes? Yeah, you just saw people like even the photographers doing cocaine, doing whatever what are they? There's all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

Yeah, so I did that for a while, Coke. For a while because I was too fat. So it was a way to lose weight. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Did you go to the studio 54?

SPEAKER_02 18:16

Oh yeah. Yeah. And I'd have to bring everyone in. So I've so the Sirius XM, there's the the bouncer guys, the doormen. They had their own radio show for a while. Oh, and so they had me on. They're like, oh, we remember you. So you could get in if they liked you and you looked good and whatever. So people would like wake me up and they're like, Kim, we're going to studio 15 months. I just want to sleep. I have to wake up in the morning and do something. No, no, we need you to get in. So I would have an entourage of like 10 people that would cart the little thing and oh, let me in. I'm like, okay, all this 10, they were with me.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

That's incredible. There's so you know, I was telling you about my doctor earlier. I had this amazing doctor, I go to this amazing place. There's a lady there, and I wonder if you know her. She was a huge model. She was on the cover of a cosmopolitan, and she had one of the biggest TV commercials in the 80s. Uh, Angelae. I could bring home the bacon, dinner, fry it up in the panel and never let you forget you. You know that's all I'm about. Her name is Pamela. I don't know her last name, I know her last name now, but because she but she would go to Studio 54, and she was. I see her at the gym all the time. She's like in her late 70s, early 80s, and I'll be at the treadmill and she sits next to me at the treadmill, she'll tell me stories about Studio 54 and Elizabeth Taylor and Mick Jagger and all this stuff. Right. And I wonder if you two ever worked together.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Yeah. Well, I she's a little older. I'm not sure. I don't think so. She would, she might remember, but a lot of times we worked alone, I'm telling you. You were by yourself. You just kind of would make friends with hair and makeup people.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

But when you're on the set, you know, what about when like meeting celebrities, like actors and stuff today? You had to meet them all, no?

SPEAKER_02 19:52

Not when we were young. I mean, you were doing a lot of catalogs and you were doing magazines and things. And back then, models were on the covers. There were no celebrities. Celebrities didn't have the skin care and they didn't have the true. Now they've taken all that and the cover's over. That's why you don't really see supermodels anymore.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

You don't, do you?

SPEAKER_02 20:14

No, the actresses kind of moved in and took our spot.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

But what about like still, you know, being in the public eye in the 80s and being very recognizable? There had to be like athletes in actors going, who's that? Set me up with her. You had to have the people like that hit on you.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Yeah. I I had some strange phone calls too.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Like, give me some names, Tim.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

So I had a private number. So back in the day, you had a we had a phone with a dial, right? Do you remember? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:44

Yeah, yeah.

Fame Encounters And Career Pivots

SPEAKER_02 20:45

And so I get a call one day, and it's this woman, and she's like, Hi, I'm the secretary for um for John Kennedy Jr., right? And she's like, um, he wants to know if you want to go out with him. I said, well, why doesn't he call me himself? And she's like, oh, well, you know, I'm the one who's doing it. And I said, well, how'd you get my number? She says, if you go out with him, I'll tell you. And I'm like, no.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Oh, come on. I would have gone out with him.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

No. I said, if he wants to date me, he has to call me himself. He never called.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

What? And that's because are you watching that show?

SPEAKER_02 21:20

No, I need to.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

It's on Hulu and Disney. It's like the highest-rated series in the history of Disney and Hulu, and it's the JFK Carolyn Bassett story. Did you know Calvin Klein? Did you meet him? Because he's in it too.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

He's a buddy. I grew up with those guys. Him, Ralph Loren, Tommy Hilfiger, all those guys are buddies. They see me and they're like, hi Kim. We all grew up together.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Well, I that's what I'm saying. I'm watching this show because the show takes place in the 90s, right? So in the 90s, during the JFK Carolyn Bassett stuff and the Calvin Klein stuff, where were you with your modeling career?

SPEAKER_02 21:50

I was probably already out and into broadcasting. So I finished up with Good Morning America. I worked with them from 1987 to 1990. And so So I was living in Florida. I was married and living in Florida and had at that point two children. And so I was pretty much a stay-at-home mom and doing broadcasting.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Well, I remember also like lots of fitness stuff with you.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Did that happen after that?

SPEAKER_02 22:17

Did you jump on it? All around that time. I can't remember when I first started, but I remember I was hired for an ingredient actually in supplements called Garcinia Cambogia. They it's very weird to be hired for an ingredient in thousands of products, but I was.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

And then I had my own fitness um slide called Slim Slide.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

That's what I was thinking of. I remember I so I have this, the way I do interviews, I have this thing where I don't like to do a lot of research, especially with someone like you. Like I know, I've known you of you for a long time. So I don't want to like dig. I want it to come out. I had this theory of I'm on a southwest flight, I'm going from Phoenix to San Diego. It's an hour flight. I happen to be sitting next to Kim Alexis. I have an hour to get the network. So that's kind of how I do it. But I remember something like that. Was there an in it was an infomercial? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

I did a lot of infomercials.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

You did for what other products?

SPEAKER_02 23:14

Well, a lot of products. It was funny because let's say there was one for teeth whitening, and then right before another company, and then that was the one that took off. And then I did one for like a contemporary grill, and that didn't take off. George Foreman's did. And then I did one for acne cream, even though I never really had acne. And then what was the one that was really popular? The acne cream? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Oh, uh Pro Pro something. Yeah. Everyone did that.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Like a week after. So I'm like, I'm just missing this.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

So did you have one agent? And like, is that you know how they like if you win the Academy Award, I want to thank my manager and my agent for being with me for three years. Have you had the same people for the whole time?

SPEAKER_02 23:52

No, no. Good question. Uh so I started out with elite models. And then after a couple of years, I went to Wilhelmina. And Wilhelmina was a famous model in like the 40s and 50s, and she opened her own agency in New York City. And then I went to Next Models for a while. And then I went to Trump Models. He had he had a modeling agency. And I do not have one now.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

But do you but what about for acting and uh so for acting?

SPEAKER_02 24:21

I literally had a woman who handled Martin Sheen and Charlie Sheen. So got to Charlie, poor bad Charlie. He tried to date me also. I'm like, you're younger, number one. Number two, too bad boy for me.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Really? So you never took advantage of your status and had a younger guy, a boy toy, or had an older man, or you were just you know why? I bet you had because you had a good relationship with your dad. Are you close with your dad?

SPEAKER_02 24:46

I just lost my dad.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Oh, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Yeah, yeah. But um, yeah, pretty good relationship. He was very protective.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

See, I have this theory, and and I've never seen it proved wrong. Um, but uh a woman that has a great relationship with her dad is so grounded and makes good decisions.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

Um, same with a uh a boy and his mother.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Right? I feel like the opposite sex parent has such a strong role in in the kids. And I see right like like I think you know, somebody that didn't have that position, a relationship with your dad, would have done the Charlie Sheen situation, would have said, okay, I'll go out with JFK Jr.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

You know what I mean? Yeah. I feel like that, but you're so grounded.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

That's I don't know. And I don't know where it comes from. It's just more comfortable that way.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

So was it hard to get off the drugs?

SPEAKER_02 25:29

No, no, in an instant. The second I met my husband, my first husband, I'm now married three times, but he the athlete? Uh no, no, no, he was a real estate guy.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

How does a real estate guy meet a supermodel?

SPEAKER_02 25:43

I was fly good question. I was flying from my first Sports Illustrated swimsuit, New York City to London overnight, right? Spend the day in London, overnight, London, Nairobi, overnight, and then jump on a little bush plane, land on a grass airstrip. My husband was sitting there standing, waiting for the for the plane to land, because he had heard there was a swimsuit model coming.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Legitimately? Yeah. But he's a but he's a real estate guy in Florida, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:13

From Florida in Nairobi. Yep. Yep. And so he you land, you get off the plane, and he's like And I'm like, oh, he's kind of tan and muscular, and this could be fun.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

And while you're doing the photo shoot, you guys start going out to dinner, having out to dinner.

SPEAKER_02 26:27

It's a safari, you're in the middle of nowhere.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Well, how does he how does he court you?

SPEAKER_02 26:31

Um, he just oh, so he asked if I would like to stay to see Africa, and he was a pilot, and he had a plane. His dad owned part of a plane with a couple other guys there. His dad was into safaris and things, and so he was staying at his friend's camp in Kenya.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

So after the shoot, you were able to.

SPEAKER_02 26:51

After the shoot, I called in New York to New York and I'm like, cancel my bookings for the next couple days. I'm gonna explore Africa. So he literally would fly me around, we'd buzz wildebeest, the the migration that would happen, and flew to Mombasa and different parts of the coast and things, and and just got to see this wonderful, raw, beautiful country. So that was how he pretty much courted me. What a wonderful one I almost I almost literally broke up with him when I brought him to New York City because he was like a fish out of water there. He didn't really understand how to rate, you know, get a taxi. And I'm like, oh my gosh, you like don't know the basics.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

How long are you with him?

SPEAKER_02 27:31

Uh I was married to him for eight years.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Well, I mean, what a way to blow someone's mind to do that, right, with the wilder beast and show you Africa.

SPEAKER_02 27:40

Yeah, that was the way to get me to the first thing. Like, were you did you fall in love then? Well, I like the idea of the adventure, and I realized that I loved God's creation and what he made and loved nature and loved being out there and living in Florida where he was in outside of Jacksonville was very um right on the beach, and just there was a lot of nature around. And so I would just travel once we came back. I would travel every week from New York down to Florida because it would help ground me and normalize me. I just loved being outdoors and um nature and not worrying about my makeup or my whatever.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Did you have to deal with did he have to deal with a lot of the jealousy? Like if you were going on shoes, was he like, where are you going? Who you going with? What?

SPEAKER_02 28:26

I think I probably blocked a lot of that out. I probably had to like call and check in every night and kind of tell him why, but I never gave anyone reason to be jealous. It's not it's not my thing. It's like not I wasn't gonna do anything that was like, oh, well, figure it out yourself. This is what I want to do.

Wellness Habits, Hormones, And Thyroid

SPEAKER_00 28:44

You know, you were talking about like the acne cream and stuff. Is there any beauty? So I know you you're fitness, whatever, but you still are a fashion icon. Is there any beauty hack? If there's one beauty hack that you do, is there one that you're like, I have to do this? Drink water. Drink water? I don't drink alcohol. You don't drink alcohol at all? When's the last time you had any alcohol?

SPEAKER_02 29:04

Uh nine years.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Really?

SPEAKER_02 29:06

But I used to go when I was working, I would go years without drinking. I don't do well. It's like poison to me. I I do not handle it.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

I don't like alcohol at all. I get a rash.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

Well, I get a bad hangover, but it was just not worth it for me.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

So will you drink how much water will you drink?

SPEAKER_02 29:20

Like what would you well as much as I like what's your do you have a morning routine?

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Like I have a routine where I drink a certain amount of water right away when I wake up.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

Um, I actually some days I need that, some days I have to have coffee first, and then I'll be right back. Coffee first.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

There's like a debate on that right now.

SPEAKER_02 29:37

No, it's better to have the water. And so studying, I've now studied under um Dr. Cabral. I don't know if you know him. He does integrative health. So he gives certifications out for that. And so he's a big believer in lime juice, water, and some sea salt. And he thinks that's a natural Gatorade for your body early in the morning. So um I try to do that most mornings too.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

So what what else are your life hacks, your health hacks? Because I know you're very, very healthy.

SPEAKER_02 30:04

Well, I just try and eat as clean as possible, read a lot of labels, only trust certain companies. I'm not crazy. If you go out to dinner, I won't sit there and be a snob over things. But if there's stuff on the menu that's weird, sometimes I'll just try and get like the sides, like vegetables or something.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

Like, do you uh go into MyFitnessPal? Do you do that stuff? Do you scroll?

SPEAKER_02 30:26

Yeah, I've tried doing all that. I'm not, yeah, I'm just not into I I've had enough people check and balance me over the years, and I'm like, I can keep that in my head.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

I would say with what you've been through as a supermodel, it's like one more thing. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:39

And there was so much when we were modeling that I felt like as all these don'ts. Like you can't have that. You don't do that, you can't do that, don't do that. And so that denying all the time, sometimes you just like that 80-20 rule is pretty good. Be good 80% of the time. And sometimes you just have to have like for me, I would run marathons to eat a bag of chocolate chip cookies.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

That's crazy. Yeah. Did you ever smoke?

SPEAKER_02 31:09

No, I tried it, but I was a swimmer, so I would cough. I do not like anything in my lungs.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

That's terrible.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

I hate stuff in my lungs.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

So what'd you have for breakfast today?

SPEAKER_02 31:20

I had a protein shake and I put a bunch of green bach uh green leafy leafies in there and pea protein and fruit.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

I think I do um berries. You ever do the creatine? Have you heard about this creatine for women?

SPEAKER_02 31:33

Yeah, I it never really I I didn't ever notice if it helped me or not. I'm not a super big, like I don't mess here. I've never done Botox. I don't do stuff like I I try to just stay eating clean and try to detox my body every three months and try to do a lot of infrared sauna and sweat and work out. But I'm 65 now, I don't work out as much as I used to. I almost don't need to. So I'll I used to run and now it's walking because I had my big dog clipped my knee and so it tore my meniscus. And running hurts.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

You know, I was telling you earlier about stem cells.

SPEAKER_02 32:10

I so you think that'll help?

SPEAKER_00 32:12

Oh, I know it'll help. I have a my son, I have a son who tore his ACL and a meniscus, took him to Mexico, he got injections in his knees. He's 100%.

SPEAKER_02 32:21

Oh, I'd be out running in a second.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

I'm telling you, it's a game changer.

SPEAKER_02 32:25

Okay. I'm with you.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

That whole thing is is just so different. So, you know, when you say you're 65, which by the way, you look fantastic. My my wife has gone through uh a lot of the hormonal stuff. Are you past all that?

SPEAKER_02 32:39

Oh, hell yeah. I'm way past that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

She just had a hysterectomy a few months ago.

SPEAKER_02 32:43

Oh yeah, that was that really kind of messed with your whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

Yeah, so now she's doing the the HRT? Yeah, pellets. Uh, it's a thing she puts in her mouth, a troche or something like that, that's what it's called.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

And it has the testosterone, it has the estrogen in it, it has everything in it. Do you do the pellets?

SPEAKER_02 32:59

I do pellets, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

And that's where they cut them and they put them in there, right? She did that for a while.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Yep. Um every three months.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

And and that works well for you?

SPEAKER_02 33:06

Yes, and it's not like I need to think about it. I just once every three months make sure I get a refill.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Yeah, do you feel different on it?

SPEAKER_02 33:13

I do, but I would love to at some point not be on anything. And I'm also on thyroids. So I found years ago that I had a thyroid problem. I've written a book on.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Is it synthetroid or what or what all?

SPEAKER_02 33:25

I take a generic form of it. I didn't really do as well on synthroids. So the levaturice levitum. Levothyoxin. Levithyroxin and levaturicetin. I take both T3 and T4. And but you're supposed to be able to get off them. So a couple, like a month ago, because of studying integrative health, right? I'm like, okay, well, they say that you're low in iron, I'm sorry, iodine and selenium. So I took the supplement that supports your thyroid, and now I'm gonna cut my dose down, right? So I started cutting my dose and I gained 10 pounds. Oh, I'm now trying to get off of the weight, trying to lose weight. But when you mess with your thyroid hormones, for me, I just blow up.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Yeah, the thyroid thing is a mystery.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

Yeah. But so I don't want to mess with the hormones if I'm like, ah, like my husband would say, um, it's time for your pellets.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Your husband now, I was just talking to your husband earlier. What does he do for a living?

SPEAKER_02 34:23

Right now, he is he's a mortgage banker, but he's looking for something else. Mortgage banking has not been a uh very lucrative lately, but he was a land developer for years and he's very big into politics and charity. He does a ton of charity work.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

Did he know that you were a supermodel when he met you?

SPEAKER_02 34:40

Yes, yes, he did.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

How'd you meet him?

Meeting Jeff And Starting Over

SPEAKER_02 34:43

So I met him. I when I left my second husband, I moved, I heard one word from God. Older. And so I was living in Jacksonville. I jumped in the only car we had with my dog, I had a chocolate lab. And it makes me kind of tear up. But I called my dad. I'm like, Dad, I'm gone. I'm I'm gone. I'm out of there. And I just started physically shaking and knew that I just needed to get out of there. So I'm like, okay, God, where do I go? And I hear Boulder. And so I had visited my oldest son at the time, he was living in Denver, and he had taken me to Boulder a couple months before, and I fell in love with their huge Whole Foods and with their creek and with their beautiful mountains. And I thought, okay. And right at the time this was going on was when Boulder had that hundred-year flood, and it was made the news, and it was like and all the so I ended up, it took me three months to get there, and I stayed with pastor friends, and I would go and be counseled, and I was going to church, making sure that if I stood before God Almighty, I could say I left for the right reason because it was important to me. And so I finally get to Boulder, and but people would keep saying, Are you sure God told you to go to Boulder? Because it's like, right, there's these floods, and I mean it's it's a disaster area. I'm like, yeah, that's where I'm supposed to go. So I get to Boulder and took me a while. I finally figured a little place to live. And I was in the front part of a house. And due to other things with my exes and how they invested money, I didn't have very much at all. So I just had enough money for the front part of someone else's house. And the woman who owned the house, her son, lived in the back part of the house. And I didn't know anybody and didn't see anybody in the winter. I moved in December 1st. And so I could hear him on the other side of the wall, and I knew there was a human being somewhere, and that if there was something really bad, like I was gonna be okay. And like at this point, my kids are out of the house, you know, empty nest and stuff. This was 10 years ago. And so um I slowly started making friends, even though it was winter, and finally meet this girlfriend, and she and I had dogs, and our dogs liked each other, and she was a Christian and she was married to a Jewish man, and we would start walking dogs. And at this point, my ex is kind of suing me and I'm going through stuff, and so she and I would pray, and it was a miserable, horrible, awful time. And I kept saying, God, why am I here? Like, what am I doing here? And so it took a while, but she, this woman I was praying with, kept saying, I know this really nice guy. He lives in Scottsdale. I'm like, who wants to date a guy that lives in Scottsdale? Like, I'm not moving to Scottsdale. So um, it took me four years of hiking and just marching around, and I knew I needed to heal and work on me. I'd been beaten down. I had listened to lies and other people telling. Always when you're modeling, people are telling you what to do. You know, it's not you don't create, they're creating, you're just the canvas. So I think that and I was very much a people pleaser. So for me, um it took a long time for me to re-heal and find who am I? How do you want to dress? What do you want to look like? Who are you? What do you want to do? I mean, really a whole shift in what was important to me because now I no longer am the mother and I didn't need I didn't have that need in my life where I had to take care of anyone else. I had to take care of me. And so finally I meet Jeff and um did you fly at the Scottsfield meeting? No, no, he flew into Boulder. So he was helping to train someone for an Iron Man. Boulder has Iron Man's in August, and he was doing the bike with uh one of the girls, Tara, who ended up doing the Boulder Marathon that year. And so he flew to go and just hang with her and watch her do the Iron Man. Sorry, not the marathon, the Iron Man. And so um that first night he was staying with my girlfriend at their house. And they said my girlfriend called, she's like, Would you like to go to dinner with us? And I was always there plus one, right? Right? Well, now they've got, she says, Jeff's gonna come along. Do you mind? I'm like, okay, I figured it was safe, right? Because they were gonna be there. So they go and drive to pick me up at my little place that I was at. I didn't know how to date. So I go running, tearing out that front door, and I jump in the back of the car, and I'm kind of sitting there. And Jeff later says, Wait a minute, I was gonna go to the door and you know, get you at the door. I'm like, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to date. I was so used to being married that I just didn't know it's so hard to go back to the dating world. So we go to dinner and he's talking and he orders this huge porterhouse steak. I mean, this huge steak with a bone. And I grew up with three boys, right? I had three sons. And so he's talking to his friend and his stew, and they kept joking back and forth. And um, so Jeff's like, Yeah, I ate that whole steak in 40, you know, 14 minutes or something. I'm like, you're cheating. You didn't eat the meat off the bone, right? He says, I'm not gonna eat the meat off the bone. I said, Well, why not? He says, because you just don't do that. Well, swimming five and a half hours a day, I used to eat the steak rind before dinner. I would beg for it, right? For that all the extra calories. So I'm like, I dare you. He says, I dare you. I picked up his bone and I sat there. And we're at the nicest restaurant in Boulder. And so I realized that he was very comfortable. And so I found that I was kind of like leaning into him a little bit, and I'm like, oh, something about him. He's just comfortable. But who wants to date a guy that lives in Scottsdale? Right. And at this point, I'm thinking, okay, I've got to go back. Now I'm healed and I'm gonna go back to New York City and I'm gonna remake my mark and I'm gonna go back into the business. And I didn't know what else to do. And so I saw him, and then the next couple of days, I was leaving, I'm moving to New York City. So before women move, you go get your hair cut and colored with the hairdresser you know, because now you're going to a new city and you're gonna take six weeks before you find the new one.

SPEAKER_03 40:54

Right.

SPEAKER_02 40:54

So that's what I did like the last Saturday that I was there. I was like, he he said to me Saturday, so that was a Friday night, we went to the Meet on the Bones. Saturday, um, I said, I have to go get my hair cut in Denver. So that's a 40-minute drive, right? He says, I'll drive you. I have relatives there. Well, if you know Jeff, you know he has relatives around the whole country, but he really did have relatives here. So he drove me, we had a nice dinner, we just spent the weekend together. We just had a really good time, and then he flew back to Scottsdale, and I went back to packing and and literally gave the whole house away because I was moving from drove with nothing to Boulder four years before, except my dog, right? Now I'm leaving a three-bedroom place that I'd gotten from Craigslist furniture and all this, you know, collected things along the way. And I'm leaving it because I'm moving to a studio apartment in New York City. So I literally, I hear God tell me again, give everything away. The next man you meet, your husband will have a fully loaded kitchen. You don't need a thing. So I had a party. At this point, I had about 10 girlfriends and I had a party and I laid everything out on the kitchen table and I gave it all away, and then I gave away the kitchen table. And I moved to New York City. But so Jeff had called me during that time and he's like, Well, who's driving you? And I'm like, Well, what do you mean who's driving me? He says, Well, you can't drive a truck across country by yourself. I said, I sure can. He says, I will fly in. He says, We'll have separate rooms, you go your way, I'll go mine. And he says, you know, I'll just help you drive there. I can work from my phone and I have to be in Florida anyways, and I'll just drive down from there and or fly down from there. So he drove me cross country and we got to know each other.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 42:42

And then I literally left him. I'm like, I'm not dating a guy that lives in Scottsdale. I gotta figure out, right? I gotta figure out my life in New York City. So I didn't talk to him for six months. Now, while he was driving me across country, he was pounding his leg and he wouldn't let me drive the rental truck, right? I had to put his license on and pay extra because of the insurance, right? So he wouldn't let me drive, but his leg kept getting numb. And I'm like, why are you pounding your leg? He says, Well, I fell off a horse and his leg was numb. So six months now go by, and I'm thinking, now it's the dead of winter in New York City. Starbucks was closed. It was so dead and so cold, right? So when you're in the middle of winter in a small studio apartment, what do you do when it's winter time? You call all your friends that live in the nice areas, right? So I call one of my girlfriends, and she was in Georgia, and she says, Come on down for the weekend. So I said, Okay. And she was a photographer and she had this huge black Frisian horse, a very big, huge horse named Grace. So I go down there and she's like, Everybody does this photo shoot with me. You have to stand on the horse. Grace will let you stand on her back with no saddle. So I'm up there doing my modeling stuff and doing these things and whatever. And then she has me sitting on the back of the horse. Crisscross applesauce, you remember that? And so we're taking pictures. She made some hand movement and that horse moved. And I fell off that big, tall horse flat on gravel, flat on my back. And I couldn't move for two minutes. Like, you know, when you're like so in so much pain that you're like assessing your body, like things moved, your toes moved. Am I okay? Am I gonna ever feel anything again? It was that bad. And so I limped back to New York City and I ended up calling Jeff because I said, I now know how it feels. I fell off of the horse. And thank you so much for driving me. Like now I know. And that's how we started. Six months later, I fell off of the horse. Her name was Grace. I fell from Grace.

SPEAKER_00 44:47

Oh, what a great story. I thought you were gonna say Jeff was the guy living on the side of the wall.

SPEAKER_02 44:53

No.

SPEAKER_00 44:53

In the first house.

SPEAKER_02 44:55

No, I forgot his name.

SPEAKER_00 44:56

So wait, so when you were driving together all the way to New York and you had set you in separate, still had separate hotels. Yeah. There was never a makeout session.

SPEAKER_02 45:04

You guys never make out, yes, all the time. Makeouts. So because we had the rental truck and it was my expense, I always had to pee. Early in the morning, I was always peeing, like pull over at the gas station, I have to pee. And Jeff says, My dad trained me, never let the tank get below half point, right? So he would stop. I'd run into the bathroom, hand him my credit card, run to the bathroom, come back, and go to the other side of the truck where he was loading the truck to go get my credit card. He'd push me against the side of the truck and make out. And I'm like, okay, I guess I know nobody in this middle of the nowhere in the town, right? So it's kind of fun. So I figured that's what we did. And after I moved to New York City, it was like, mm-mm.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

Did you have a job in New York City?

SPEAKER_02 45:46

No.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

So you just went there six months, nothing.

SPEAKER_02 45:49

By faith, yeah. By faith.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

Oh, you're a very religious person now. Have you always been?

SPEAKER_02 45:54

Uh I think that that's a journey, probably. So my faith levels can go up and down. There's a lot of doubt. I'm like, forgive me for having to jump.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

Did you meditate?

SPEAKER_02 46:03

I pray.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

You pray. Every morning, every night, all the time?

SPEAKER_02 46:06

Uh anytime I think about it. Or and and mostly to me, it's thank you, Lord, for that beautiful sunset. Or oh, you're showing off, God. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

Did Jeff know? At one point, did Jeff know that you were Kim Alexa's supermodel from the 80s?

SPEAKER_02 46:20

He did a long, he did before we went out to that dinner.

SPEAKER_00 46:23

Oh, he did. He knew. I would think.

SPEAKER_02 46:25

So he just thought we were gonna be friends. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:29

So was your divorce, your second divorce, was it one of those things that was in the news all the time or something?

SPEAKER_02 46:33

No. No, because I wasn't an in the news type of person.

SPEAKER_00 46:36

You weren't? It wasn't something ugly divorce or tough.

SPEAKER_02 46:39

I tried not to be ugly.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

I just tried to Well, it sounded like you were there was things going on.

SPEAKER_02 46:43

Well, there was ugly things, but I wasn't going to broadcast them. Right. I'm still kind of protective. That's the father of my kid.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

Oh, good. So so when the that's so stated, then does that mean when we see stuff like that in the news, is that all on purpose? Like you could keep a celebrity divorce quiet if you wanted to?

SPEAKER_02 47:00

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:01

But they don't?

SPEAKER_02 47:02

No. Some some don't. Or I didn't have a big enough time uh name at the time, you know, after 30, 40 years of working. So maybe they saw it in the court papers or something.

SPEAKER_00 47:15

But so what about now? What does Kim Alexis do now? You're an integrative uh medicine expert?

SPEAKER_02 47:21

Uh no, I'm just a person who loves to study and learn. And I never went to college, right? So I was discovered at 18, went to New York City at 18. Always love studying. I used to bring home extra books in high school. So I started working as the wellness ambassador for trilogies, all the trilogies which are active adult communities around the country. And I realized I think I'm gonna get my real estate license. And so I spent six months, got my license and passed. And then I'm looking around, I'm like, okay, I'm the wellness ambassador. Well, maybe I should learn how to lead classes, fitness classes. And I'd through the slim slide and different projects I'd done. I'd done some exercise things, body by Jake, I'd done things over the years, but I thought, let's be certified. And so I got certified as a group fitness instructor. And then I looked and I'm like, I have always studied nutrition. And so I thought I'd really like to get some type of certification. I didn't want to do a four-year college where I had to get all my old transcripts from 45 years or 47 years ago, right? And excuse me, so I uh I did the integrative health, which was literally just studying about root causes of things and how you're either taking something away, which is toxins, or you're adding something, which is supplements. And I like that concept of not diagnosing, treating, and curing, but really just diving into root cause, figuring out what that is, and using support systems to help you get back to a normal. Your body's never making your body doesn't make a mistake. Right.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

That's what they teach you. Are you into the all the RFK stuff and all I love that he's doing all that?

SPEAKER_02 49:01

I was never a big vaccine person. I just, you know, with my children when they were young, uh, my youngest or my oldest had some learning problems, and I think they came from the vaccines. You can't prove it, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:15

There's this guy, have you seen that guy that's trying to live to be like 400 years old? His name is Brian Johnson. Yeah. I read this interview with him. He said if he could do one thing, he would do olive oil every day. So I started drinking olive oil every day. I do like a shot. I have no idea.

SPEAKER_02 49:28

Is that before or after your coffee?

SPEAKER_00 49:30

No, I do it later on the day after I've already eaten because I feel it'd be weird. So he says like the healthiest thing for you, so I do a shot of it every day. Have you done that yet?

SPEAKER_02 49:37

No. I do that only if I do a liver cleanse.

SPEAKER_00 49:39

Oh, I've never done a liver cleanse.

SPEAKER_02 49:41

Oh, I'll teach you. What is that? I'll take you through that. So you don't eat after two, and then you just do Epsom salts for until about six, and then you take olive oil, like a cup of olive oil, and then a cup of grapefruit juice, mix it together.

SPEAKER_00 49:53

Oh man, that's gonna do all kinds of cleansing.

SPEAKER_02 49:55

Drink it and go to bed.

SPEAKER_00 49:56

Does Jeff have kids?

SPEAKER_02 49:58

No, he was never married before.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

Whoa.

SPEAKER_02 50:00

So he got married at 52. I'm five years older. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:04

So he is your boy toy. You did have a boy toy.

Advice For Young Models And Boundaries

SPEAKER_02 50:07

I guess that that's what you want to call him.

SPEAKER_00 50:09

Well, so if you what if you had to give advice to somebody right now that's that's a 17-year-old, 18-year-old starting and modeling, what kind of advice would you give them right now?

SPEAKER_02 50:18

Always have something to look back on, to to fall back on. So don't be desperate. You never want to do something where you're backed in a corner and you're desperate, meaning, okay, I have to get this job. I need money for my rent. Um, if I don't model, if I don't go to bed with this guy, if I don't, whatever, if I don't go out and party, then I'm not gonna get the job. I was always like, you know what? You can take your little job. I'm gonna go do something else. Kind of like how you were. So always have that strength to be able to say no.

SPEAKER_00 50:49

Did you ever have to do nudes and stuff?

SPEAKER_02 50:51

And you did you well, they would try. So you would be on set and they're like, take off your top. Right. Like a lot with the French. Right. The French would be like, take off your top, darling. I'm like, what now? You know, they're really why. And they're like, it is art. I said, No.

SPEAKER_00 51:06

So you never did it?

SPEAKER_02 51:07

No, sometimes sometimes I'd like to walk offset and they're all pissed at me. And I'm like, God, this was not in the original contract.

SPEAKER_00 51:15

There should be a movie. You need a movie. What about did you ever have to do, since you brought up French, did you ever do like not shave your armpits, let your armpits grow out?

SPEAKER_02 51:23

Oh gosh, no.

SPEAKER_00 51:24

No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 51:25

I was a swimmer, no.

SPEAKER_00 51:27

I don't want to end my interview talking about your hairy armpits.

SPEAKER_02 51:32

How about going to like Bakerom Yoga? Did you ever go next to like people that were from other countries and all those spices that come out when they smack?

SPEAKER_00 51:39

You ever do hot yoga? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:41

I'm like, oh, not good. Yeah. I'm sure we stink to other countries too.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

Yeah. I would, in fact, even me, whenever I would, I could, whenever I eat something, I got to the point of doing yoga so much where I stopped using underarm deodorant and certain shampoos because it would I could smell it. Yes. And I stopped using cologne. I still to this day don't wear cologne because of that. Because it would come out and drip in my eyes.

SPEAKER_02 52:01

Well, and you know, hunters don't use that because the animals can smell all the soaps and the smells that we put in everything.

SPEAKER_00 52:06

Oh, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_02 52:07

Yeah, they have their natural scent too, I think.

SPEAKER_00 52:09

In we were talking about your your your your eating habits. Are there restaurants here that you love that because of their healthiness?

SPEAKER_02 52:16

I I probably need to go out more. I don't really, we don't go to a ton of restaurants. I'd prefer to just make like last night I had shrimp on a Caesar salad, and that's that you made?

SPEAKER_00 52:29

But I mean, Jeff being a Scottsdale guy, there's not Scottsdale restaurants that you go to.

SPEAKER_02 52:32

I know. Well, we go to some and like it would be like a Mediterranean or something because he loves hummus and oh, have you been to the new one?

SPEAKER_00 52:39

It's really busy. Oh my god, what's it called?

SPEAKER_02 52:43

Oh my god. Good one.

SPEAKER_00 52:47

What about have you been to The Ends?

SPEAKER_02 52:49

No.

SPEAKER_00 52:50

There's a restaurant in Scottsfield called The Ends, and it's like healthy, help they cook everything with the beef tallow and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 52:56

And it's so I have foundation that has beef tallow on it. Isn't that funny?

SPEAKER_00 53:00

Yeah, that's supposed to be like good for you.

SPEAKER_02 53:02

I don't uh so I just started it like last fall, and I don't want to wear it now anymore. It's getting too hot, so it feels like this big green.

Covers, Perspective, And Closing Thanks

SPEAKER_00 53:09

I figured I'd give you pimples. Oh so let me ask you this, Kim Alexis. How did I do interviewing you today?

SPEAKER_02 53:15

You did great.

SPEAKER_00 53:15

Did I? Because I was really insecure at interviewing a supermodel.

SPEAKER_02 53:18

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 53:19

And how many magazine covers have you been on? Do you have a number?

SPEAKER_02 53:22

Uh we just say 500. Kind of stuff at that.

SPEAKER_00 53:25

Do you have them all?

SPEAKER_02 53:26

Uh we have boxes, banker boxes of tarot sheets. So one thing in my business is you can always tell how much you worked. I had banker boxes filled with tarot sheets from magazines of all the different ads and all the different covers.

SPEAKER_00 53:42

But is there any cover you have framed in your house?

SPEAKER_02 53:44

We have a couple. And Jeff likes them there. My second husband tore them all down. He's like, We're not putting you up, we're putting me up. So we'd put him up instead of me.

SPEAKER_00 53:53

He was on covers of magazines.

SPEAKER_02 53:54

Yeah, well, he was on interview once, cover of interview with Andy Warhol. Jeez.

SPEAKER_00 53:59

Well, thanks for taking the time to jump on my podcast, Kim.

SPEAKER_02 54:02

Yes, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 54:03

Thanks. Okay, so welcome to our podcast. This is a little bit different today because this podcast is a spin-off of our radio show.