Paulina Porizkova Reveals Why Her Marriage Left Her So Unhappy

Paulina Porizkova became a household name during the 1980s and 1990s as one of the original supermodels, alongside the likes of Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, and Christy Turlington. She walked all of the important runways in New York, Paris, and Milan and graced the biggest covers in the fashion industry. Porizkova landed her first cover on Sports Illustrated at the tender age of 17, and later reflected on the gig in 2020. "I thought it was a catalog for sportswear. Once the issue came out, however, I got the significance of it pretty quickly," the Czech-born beauty explained to CBS News. "In the '80s I was exotic because I was from an Eastern European country, and I had this story; I was a refugee. And it sort of catapulted me into the big time."

After one opportunity led to another, Porizkova was featured in The Cars' music video for their single "Drive." That's where she met and fell in love with her future husband, The Cars' frontman Ric Ocasek. The couple married in 1987 but separated in 2017, two years before Ocasek's death. Now, Porizkova, in a wide-ranging interview in which she strips her clothes off while detailing what went down behind closed doors in her marriage, is saying that her marriage ended after her late husband gave her an ultimatum.

Paulina Porizkova claims that her marriage to Ric Ocasek left her deeply unhappy for several reasons. In a new interview for StyleLikeU's "Defying Ageism" videos series, the former supermodel strips off her clothes while recalling some of the moments in her marriage that made her feel both invisible and worthless. Ocasek died while the couple were in the middle of getting a divorce. "We had been together for my entire life, since I was 19, and suddenly he seemed not to find me attractive anymore," Porizkova reflected. "I started feeling like I was a coffee table, something you put s**t on and bump into in the middle of the night, but pay no more attention to other than that."

Realizing that their marriage had hit a very turbulent bump, Porizkova says she gave her husband an ultimatum: either he pays more attention to her and her needs, or they separate. "He just looked at me really coldly and said, 'Well, it seems like your mind's made up, so whatever.' And that was it," she recalled. "I really, really couldn't believe it. ... That was all the fight he was going to put up for me.'" Porizkova learned she was omitted from Ocasek's will after his death, making the grieving process even more "tricky," she said. No one would doubt that, for sure.