Model Paulina Porizkova gives readers a candid look at her relationship and divorce from Ric Ocasek in her new collection of essays, “No Filter: The Good, The Bad, and The Beautiful.”
In 1988, the Czech-born supermodel secured an $8 million contract with Estée Laude, which, at the time, was the biggest modeling contract ever. However, it was a chance to appear in The Cars’ song “Drive” in 1984 that forever shaped her life and career.
Paulina Porizkova Knew She Was Going To Marry Ric Ocasek As Soon As She Saw Him
In previous Instagram posts, Paulina, now 57, had already confessed to being smitten with The Cars frontman just from seeing him on TV. However, when she saw him walking towards her in person, she “knew this was the man I was going to marry,” she wrote in her book.
Although he was 40 and she was 19, the two became engaged in an affair. He had already been married twice before and was the father of four sons. Regardless, none of this mattered to Paulina. The couple wed in 1989 after he finalized his divorce.
Although she was smitten with him from the beginning, the “Anna” actress confessed that he was possessive and controlling. “Eventually I gave up all my friends, straight or gay,” she wrote. “Nothing was as important as our love.”
“He flew into jealous rages often enough to make me understand how much I mattered to him,” she continued, explaining that she stopped doing modeling jobs that involved other men or were inconvenient to his schedule.
Paulina Visited A Psychic For Answers When The Romance Started To Fade
“He became my whole world, my entire universe. This is what I always wanted, to be this important. To be adored,” Paulina said. However, things started to take a turn for the worse as the couple’s two sons – Jonathan, 29, and Oliver, 24 – got older.
“My adoration for him was subsiding, being replaced by a more clear-eyed love,” Paulina wrote. “I began to understand his limitations. But what he needed from me was the adoration. The blind infatuation. That was his comprehension of love. Any dissent caused him to pull away.”
At the age of 52, their romance had cooled, and the “Long Time Since” actress admitted that she even went to a psychic for answers. “I was fifty-two, had not been touched by my husband for years, and felt invisible,” she confessed in her book. “All I wanted to know was if I was ever going to have sex again.”
The Couple Separated… But Still Ate Together, Went Out Together, and Watched TV Together
In 2019, the couple announced to the world that they were separating. However, Paulina said that very little had changed in their day-to-day lives, writing, “Still eating meals together, still going out with our friends, still watching television in the kitchen before bed when the kids were home for breaks. We were still a family, even if we weren’t living as husband and wife.”
When Ric was diagnosed with cancer and was about to have heart surgery, Paulina was at his side. Although the surgery went well, he passed away at age 75 while he was recovering.
“I touched his face. It was cold. My legs went numb and collapsed under me. I sat on the floor, gasping for breath,” Porikova wrote. “Ric had just gotten back from major surgery, but it had gone well. He was recovering. He was on his way back to health. This just couldn’t be.”
Ric had suffered from hypertensive heart and coronary artery disease. The Chief Medical Examiner’s office ruled his death to be from natural causes. Although his cause of death wasn’t a shock, a few days later, Paulina learned that his ex had cut his new eldest sons and her out of the will.
Paulina Porizkova Reflects On Grief and Betrayal After Ric Ocasek’s Passing
Paulina talked extensively about her struggle with grief and betrayal in her book, writing, “Grief and betrayal are separate emotions, but they are on the same side of the seesaw. The terrible side. There is no balance. Experiencing both at the same time is like experiencing a really bad case of food poisoning.”
In addition to struggling to cope with the split of her family homes, the world was also going through the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, which left Paulina more isolated than ever. She called it one of the “darkest and most painful” times of her life.
“I was grappling with grief, betrayal, trauma, and heartbreak,” she wrote. “I was hurting so badly I wanted to stop being me. I continued to have Zoom sessions with my long-time therapist. But all I did was weep and spin in circles.”
The “Dark Asylum” actress started posting photos and videos that showed her crying on Instagram, which earned her support and criticism from her 873,000 Instagram followers. Paulina explained why she posted “those crying selfies” in her book, writing, “I did want empathy. I did want compassion. I was desperate to connect with someone. Anyone.”
Two years after his death, Ocasek’s estate proposed a settlement and Paulina said that she finally received what she was owed. She has since dated “Men in Black” screenwriter Ed Solomon and Oscar-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, although she is currently single and now on dating sites.
“No Filter: The Good, The Bad, and The Beautiful” hits bookshelves on Tuesday, November 15.
