Elle Macpherson

In the early 1980s she was romantically associated with Billy Joel. In 1984, she came across French fashion photographer and Creative Director of Elle magazine, Gilles Bensimon. The two married in May 1986, but the marriage culminated into divorce after three years.

She was in a relationship with Arpad Busson, a London-based French financier, from 1996 to July 2005. They together have two sons, February 1998 born Arpad Flynn Busson, and February 2003 born Aurelius Cy Andrea Busson.

In early 2009, she started dating Jeffrey Soffer, a hotel heir and billionaire from Miami, Florida. After a short break-up they got engaged in March 2013 and tied the knot in July that year. In 2017, the couple announced that they are going for a divorce.

Elle Macpherson was born Eleanor Nancy Gow on March 29, 1964, in Killara, New South Wales, Australia, to Peter Gow and Frances Gow.

Her father was an entrepreneur and sound engineer who was president of Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks, an Australian professional rugby league team while her mother was a nurse. When she was 10, her parents divorced following which she and her two siblings lived with her mother.

Her mother remarried multimillionaire Neil Macpherson. She and her younger sister, Miriam Frances Gow (now a famous environmentalist Mimi Macpherson) adopted surname of their stepfather. She has another sister, Elizabeth, and a brother, Brendon.

She was raised in East Lindfield. In 1981 she completed her Higher School Certificate studying at the Killara High School. She studied law for a year at the University of Sydney.

Prior to her studies at the University of Sydney she visited the US ito pursue modelling for a year so that she can purchase her law books with the earnings. She went to New York City where she soon signed contract with ‘Click Model Management’.

In 1982, she made her debut in modelling with a TV advertisement of ‘The Coca-Cola Company’ manufactured diet cola soft drink ‘Tab’. The popular commercial gave her a “girl next door” image in her homeland.

The rest of the 1980s saw her featuring on prominent magazine covers including ‘New York’, Australian and British ‘Vogue’, ‘Harper's Bazaar’, ‘Cosmopolitan’, ‘Marie Claire’, ‘Time’ and ‘Elle’ among others. The latter saw her featuring on many of its covers as also making appearances in all its issues for six consecutive years.

Eventually, she emerged as one of the new generation of supermodels along with Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Pavlína Pořízková, Tatjana Patitz, Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista.

As a result of her early success in modelling, she became the long-time face of French luxury skin care company ‘Biotherm’ in 1985.