In a time when cocaine and Studio 54 were all the rage during the ’70s and ’80s, former supermodel Kim Alexis reveals she saw it all — drugs, harassment, overdoses and more.
Though she was immersed in the wild partying disco days of the ’80s, Alexis — who graced the covers of Sports Illustrated, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, Self and Cosmopolitan — was able to stay away from trouble.
“I never felt I was thin enough, so I did do [cocaine] for a while, but got out of it,” she exclusively told Page Six. “I decided to run marathons to prove I was an athlete instead. So, I ran eight marathons.”
She also explained that while she tried to stay away from Studio 54, her friends at the time all wanted to go.
“People would say to me, ‘Come on, Kim, we want to go.’ I’m like, ‘I want to go to bed.’ And they’re like, ‘No, no, we need you to get in,’” she recalled.
Unnamed celebrities were “overdosed on drugs and just zoned out,” Alexis, 66, remembered.
“It was scary and it was sad because you saw them as something else, and they were doing what they did there,” the former model, who now hosts the “Unexpired” podcast, added.
Alexis was discovered by the late modeling agent John Casablancas, who was connected to Jeffrey Epstein and President Trump, and was accused of sexual abuse in a lawsuit by a former model. Casablancas has denied the allegations and the lawsuit was later dismissed.
“He didn’t try anything with me,” Alexis told Page Six. “People may think that I’m naive, but I saw him as a father figure. He was always kind and gentlemanly to me. He tried nothing ever with me.”
The Sports Illustrated cover girl added that she believes she radiated an energy that repelled any would-be assailants.
“I believe that I was put in a lot of situations and I had this weird innate thing, and I think guys understand it,” she explained. “Like if you approach me, I’m going to hit you… And so it was something that you kind of carry with you.
“Like you turn around and you’re like, don’t even try it. And so that got me through a lot of things where it didn’t escalate to a bad point.”
As successful as she was, Alexis admitted she never liked modeling, calling it “hard work,” although she conceded that some don’t see it that way.
“But it was hard work,” she explained. “People don’t know what you have to do behind the scenes. But for me, I just was not a big fashion person. I was a tomboy. I was used to swimming, and I was used to performance-based [work].”
Alexis quit the business in her 20s and never earned the really big bucks that the next generation of supermodels did.
She was married to former NHL player Ron Duguay, with whom she has a son, Noah, and had two more sons, Jamie and Bobby, with ex-husband Jim Stockton.
Alexis called her podcast her “passion,” sharing it’s about “How did you get from here to here?”
“I love hearing other people’s stories about: You started here, but you went here, and how did you get there? I’m finding there’s a lot of preparation, but there’s a lot people that are just willing to say, yes, I’ll try it,” she said.
Alexis added that she hopes to be “inspiring…I just believe that I’m trying to make the world a better place, and that’s my way to do it.”
The post Supermodel Kim Alexis recalls dark side of ’80s fashion world: Cocaine, harassment and Studio 54 overdoses appeared first on Page Six.
