Why Linda Evangelista Made Directors of AppleTV’s 'The Super Models' Cry the First Time They Met

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Linda Evangelista brought the directors of a new Apple TV+ docuseries to tears within hours of first meeting them. Roger Ross Williams and Larissa Bills — who co-directed The Super Models, a new show that reflects on the careers of Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford — revealed the moment in an interview with SheKnows ahead of the September 20 release of the show.

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“The first time we met Linda at dinner, we all three cried at the dinner,” Williams, the Academy Award-winning director of Music for Prudence, told SheKnows. “So it was a it was a precursor to what’s to come.”

In the series, Evangelista is candid about her traumatic past. The 58-year-old star enrolled in a modeling school at just 12 years old and recalled feeling pressured to post nude during a photoshoot in Japan at the age of 16.

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“When I got to Japan, the first thing they asked me about was nude photographs and they wanted to take all my measurements, take the clothes off,” she says in the doc. “I kind of freaked out. I never should have went there by myself.” She said that the incident almost made her give up modeling.

Elsewhere in the series, Evangelista alleges that she was abused by her ex-husband, Gérald Marie, throughout their six-year marriage

“It’s easier said than done to leave an abusive relationship. I understand that concept, because I lived it. If it was just a matter of saying, ‘I want a divorce, see ya’ … it doesn’t work that way,” explained Evangelista. She claimed that Marie, the former European head of Elite Models, “knew not to touch my face,” because it was her “moneymaker.”

“I married him when I was 22 and I got out when I was 27 and he let me out as long as he got everything,” said Evangelista. “But I was safe and I got my freedom.”

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Evangelista says her heart “broke” in 2020 when several women came for to accused her ex-husband of sexually abusing and assaulting them in the 1980s and 1990s. “Thanks to the power of all these women coming forward, God bless all of them, it gave me the courage now to speak,” Evangelista said.

In a statement to Apple TV+, attorneys for Marie, who is now 73, denied the abuse accusations saying that he “has never committed the slightest act of violence.”

In conversation with SheKnows, Williams praised Evangelista for her morals. “Linda, you know is the vulnerable conscience of fashion that we expected,” Williams stated while Bills expressed gratitude to each of the stars of the series.

“They’re incredibly unique as individuals, but they’re all very generous and they’re all incredibly loyal. Very professional,” Bills stated. “And you know, they they let us in to their lives in a way that I’m really really grateful for that experience.”

Before you go, click here to see all the famous ’90s supermodels who have since become moms.

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