Marie Helvin was one of the original supermodels and has told of her encounters with famous men, including one who is linked to the Royal Family.
She was a Vogue cover star in the 70s, a supermodel in the 80s, married to iconic photographer David Bailey, and a pioneer detox guru in the 90s.
Following her split from Bailey in 1984, Marie was introduced to Mark Shand, the conservationist brother of the future Queen, Camilla Parker-Bowles.
The couple were together for four years, during which time Marie got to know Camilla and the rest of the family, but turned down Mark’s marriage proposals.
He later died in 2014, aged 62, after a fall in New York City.
In a new interview with Hello! magazine, Marie, 73, gushed: ‘He was a lovely, wonderful man, but the timing was wrong. It was just too soon after my divorce, and the last thing I wanted was to get married right away. It’s sad, but that’s how life is.
Marie Helvin was one of the original supermodels and has told of her encounters with famous men like Mark Shand (the pair pictured in 1987)
Mark was the conservationist brother of the Queen, Camilla Parker-Bowles (pictured in October)Â
In a new interview with Hello! magazine, Marie, 73, gushed: ‘He was a lovely, wonderful man, but the timing was wrong’
‘I adore Camilla. Of course, she’s the Queen now, but back then I was close to her and her family, and they couldn’t have been more kind and welcoming to me and my family. I used to spend Christmas with them, and sometimes my mum would fly over, and it was really wonderful.
‘One year we were at Camilla and her [then] husband Andrew’s house, then her parents, then her sister.’
Marrie added: Recently I saw a funny interview with Camilla’s son, Tom, who said that one of his most memorable Christmases when he was a boy was me coming down the stairs in a negligee; he said he’d never seen anything like it in his life.
‘I remember that was my first Christmas with the family, and I just presumed that you dressed up for breakfast, so I went out and bought a Christian Dior white satin negligee. I had no idea that people in the country wear gum boots and jeans and sweaters.’
Alongside Camilla’s brother, Marie has had relationships with Jack Nicholson, Eric Clapton, Peter Gabriel, and Marco Pierre White.
Elsewhere during the chat, Marie revealed that a year after having surgery to remove and reconstruct her right breast amid her cancer battle, she enjoyed a passionate encounter with an expedition leader she met through a mutual friend.
The model explained: I still feel very much a sexual person – I think I will probably always feel that way, whether I’m having sex or not.
‘It wasn’t an affair, because it was just once, but I hate to use the phrase one-night stand, because it wasn’t that either,’ she explains. ‘He was somebody that I vetted and checked out; I met with him a couple times, then I knew that I did want to sleep with him.
Marie, pictured in the early ’90s
Marie was married for 10 years to the acclaimed photographer David Bailey, whom she credits with kickstarting her career. Pictured, in March 2019
‘I felt comfortable enough to explain to him that I’ve had this surgery, and I can’t really have this breast touched too much, because it took a long while for the sensitivity to come back.
‘I thought that if I don’t do it, I’ll be afraid. And it was great. I chose well for my first time. He lives in France, so we didn’t think about continuing things.’
Born in Tokyo to an American G.I. father and a Japanese mother, Marie admits she was in the ‘right place, right time’ when it came to pursuing a career in fashion.
After being scouted as a teenager in Japan, she moved to London and worked for Yves Saint Laurent, Versace and Valentino, admitting that her ‘exotic background’ helped.
Marie was diagnosed with breast cancer just before her 70th birthday.
Speaking about her breast cancer diagnosis in an interview with the Daily Mail back in December 2022, Marie said: ‘I had a vision, an idea of myself, I suppose, of how fit and healthy I was’.
‘As a model, my body was my instrument and I have always looked after it. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I exercise every day, so I guess it made me think that something like this could not happen to me because I didn’t fit the profile.
‘Now I know what a lot of rubbish that is. It’s made me realise that appearances are deceiving.’
‘Before the surgery I resolved to be strong. I knew I had to get myself in the best possible shape to get through it,’ she said.
‘But now, sometimes I just sit in bed and cry for no reason. Even after everything, there is part of me that can’t believe it happened. No one can explain to me why it did. It is just one of those things.’
While Marie now has the all clear, she explained she has been put on a five year treatment plan which is also taking its toll.
‘I got my all clear, but now I struggling with my treatment, I have a treatment that is going to last for 5 years and I have just completed my first year.
‘The three drugs they use here they mimic the symptoms of the menopause. So it is like I am going through the menopause all over again.
‘I sleep as I when i feel like it, I can’t sleep, I wake up with night sweats.’
