Supermodel Paulina Porizkova on grieving Ric Ocasek: 'I'm still struggling'

Paulina Porizkova on grief and why she speaks openly about the loss of her husband, Cars frontman Ric Ocasek

Video Transcript

PAULINA PORIZKOVA: My husband's death, finding him in a morning when I went to bring him his coffee, was the single worst moment in my life. I thought that I would just walk downstairs to my children and say, Daddy has passed. But what I actually ended up doing was crawling on all fours, sort of heaving and not saying anything.

You just know that your purpose is to make sure everybody else is OK. All my friends filled the house. One of my best girlfriends took my boys to select a gravesite and the coffin. My other friends came with food. Other friends came with alcohol. I was taken care of. That's why friends are so important because when you need them, there they are.

Problem is when everybody is really sick of you going, wee, wee, wee, wee, we know you are in grief, but can we talk about something else? That's when it gets bad. Grief is like this blanket that you're forced to wear, and it insulates you against some things, but it weighs you down.

The other day, I woke up in tears, and I thought, you know, I don't really have an option besides going with it. I was all by myself. My kids were not around. I didn't have to pretend to be strong for anybody. And you know what, I felt lighter.

I have been honest and vocal about being cut out of the will because it was made public. I don't think I would have ever talked about it for respect for my children and also, because it feels really demeaning, honestly, and everybody gets to participate in this like, well, what did you do then? Like, how evil were you to him that he disinherited you?

I feel like I have to defend myself because I am not aware of having done anything wrong. I'm not aware of having abandoned my husband. For a really long time, after my husband passed, sometimes I would just be so angry I think, if you were alive, I would wish you dead. And sometimes, I would walk past a building in New York and I think, oh, Rick would love the apartment penthouse, and then I would start crying.

I feel like grief is something that needs to be carried until it no longer fits. I don't believe in medicating grief because I think it's a natural process that I just have to reach the end of. What helps in grief is friends. It's love from other people. It's love from your friends. It's love from your family. It's knowing that you're not alone.

What do I miss most about my husband? After having spent 35 years with him, it felt like I was missing an arm or a leg. Without him, I have lost half my identity. I think of Rick every day, sometimes angrily. But as time has gone by, I think about him with more and more tenderness. He made a mistake, but then he didn't live to correct it, and that's not his fault. And I'm going to choose to go with that because there's nobody to tell me any different.

It's been a really unpleasant year and a half, and coupled with this thing called the pandemic, I am just trying to stay afloat. And I'm grateful that I have two wonderful kids and some wonderful friends that lend me a hand and let me grieve so I can regain my breath and keep swimming.