7 Most Mindblowingly Awesome Victoria’s Secret Models

Victoria’s Secret is known for many things; the beautiful models, the white winged angels, eating disorders…yet every now and then what goes on beyond the camera into the intimate lives of these models blows away anything they may have achieved in their spot-lit careers. While some achieve greatness with their own product line, movie gig or ambassador title to various charities and humanitarian works, these women are set apart by the greatness of their character and their testament to what being human is really about. After all, just because you are a general doesn’t mean you’ve spent time in the field, and these Victoria’s Secret models prove that just because you have a pretty face it doesn’t mean life won’t put you to the test.

7) Rachel Roberts Gets Famous By Not Existing

Most models do everything they can to get noticed, but Victoria’s Secret model Rachel Roberts’ climb to fame started the exact opposite way. Writer/director Andrew Niccol was seeking an unknown for a part in a movie he was creating when he happened upon Roberts and chose her for the lead role. However, the lead role in this film required that she would receive no credit for being in the film, nor would anyone even believe she was alive. The film in question is the 2002 smash hit S1m0ne, a story about a down and out movie producer who gets lucky and creates an artificial actress with one hitch: no one knows that she isn’t real. The studio went to great lengths to hide Rachel from the public, and it wouldn’t be until long after the debut that anyone caught on.

If the duality of the role to her personal life wasn’t already bizarre, the movie ends with the director in an apparent romantic relationship with the actress that doesn’t exist, yet in real life the actress they wanted people to think didn’t exist was in a romantic relationship with the director of the film she was working on. The two later married and afterwards Robert’s career with Victoria’s Secret began.

6) Miranda Kerr Saves a Man Who Was Caught With HER Pants Down

Being a Victoria’s Secret model draws a lot of perverted attention to you in the form of photoshopped nudity, but fortunately most people who are interested in those images keep it at home and to themselves. However in 2010 banker David Kiely couldn’t contain himself and his love for Miranda and plundered the web for explicit images of her on his work computer. Even this wouldn’t have been so bad had it not been for the Channel 7 news team who was filming live in the bank he was working at which caught every moment of his naughty adoration. Within days the YouTube clip of it gathered over 1.3 million hits, and his employers were not at all pleased. He was suspended from his job and things looked bleak for Mr. Kiely.

Knowing what was on his mind, most supermodels would wince and ask for a wet-nap, but Miranda Kerr took an entirely different approach and made a public appeal to help him keep his job. Her word had such an impact on the company that they forgave David for his mistake and returned him to his old position, no harm done.

On the flip side of the coin, the announcement Kerr made increased her search hits over 100%. And people think Victoria’s Secret models are dumb.

5) Pavlina Porizkova Is Held Captive By The Former Soviet Union

Many Victoria’s Secret models come from countries that were once territories of the Soviet Union, but when Pavlina was child in 1968, her parents fled Czechoslovakia to escape the Warsaw Pact invasion. Because of the dangers of traveling at the time, she was left behind with her grandmother while her parents made their way to Sweden. Once they were safe, Pavlina’s parents tried to take her back, but the Soviets refused. The battle that ensued was wrought with drama, including a failed rescue attempt, that made her a national celebrity across her parent’s new country. It would take another seven years of intense political pressure before the Soviet government finally gave in. Not long afterwards her climb to fame exploded and eventually she became one of the highly desired Victoria’s Secret models.

4) Paula Barbieri’s Killer Career Killed By Suspected Killer

Relationships have been known to destroy jobs, and even Victoria’s Secret models are not immune to the effects a rotten significant other can do to you. Paula Barbieri’s relationship was kind of like this, but with a bloody glove and two dead A-list celebrities added into the mix.

You see, the Victoria’s vixen was dating and quite in love with a kind-hearted athlete named O.J. Simpson who one day found himself in a bit of trouble and decided to think about his next course of action by driving at high speeds down a local California freeway, a line of screaming police cars at his bumper. When O.J. was finally apprehended he pled his innocence, and Barbieri stood by his side. Everyone else, however, was pretty sure he was guilty. This included her father, who publicly denounced her as “brainwashed,” and she watched her career as a model shatter at her feet like a glass tiara.

Several months later, after constant beratement by Simpson and accusation of cheating, she finally woke up and left him. After he was acquitted of murder, O.J. expressed interest in her once more and she decided to give him another chance, only to find out he was using her as a publicity stunt to try and save his damaged image.

In 2000 Barbieri married a Florida Circuit judge, which is probably a wise choice for someone wanting to avoid a man who spent as much time as O.J. did in front of one.

3) Gisele Bündchen Makes An Entire Country Hate Their Breasts

Gisele Bündchen may be known worldwide as one of the most beautiful of the Victoria’s Secret Angels, but while she was soaring on the wings of a lingerie company, she decided that her home country of Brazil needed a little booby shaming. She launched a campaign for breast augmentation so her small-chested Brazilian sisters wouldn’t have to feel so bad about themselves. Rather than giving her the usual feisty Brazilian finger, the women clung to her advice like she was Mary of Mam-dalene to the tune of 36,000 augmentations that year alone. She would later be given the nickname “Boobs of Brazil” for her efforts.

2) Alek Wek Escapes Poverty And War, Then Breaks Industry Standards

One of the great things about Victoria’s Secret is that they scout for beauty everywhere. Still, one place you wouldn’t think they would have their eyes focused on is the South Sudan in northeastern Africa, an area rife with poverty and starvation. Yet this is where Alex Wek once called home with her eight other siblings in a home without running water or electricity. To make matters worse, civil war broke out and in 1991 she and her family decided to flee the country lest they become innocent victims in a very bloody war. However, both the Sudan government and the rebel faction against them found the Wek family’s choice to be a poor one, and hunted them down for their “betrayal.” Her father would not survive the trip, but she made it all the way to London where she enrolled in London’s College of Fashion. Due to her unique look, she shattered previous images of what beauty was perceived to be, helping the women’s liberation movement in ways it had never previously done before.

1) The Planet Itself Lashes At Petra N?mcová So She Strikes Back At It

Victoria’s Secret Models are well known for their endurance in social settings, but Petra N?mcová found herself in a situation so dire only her strength of will managed to save her.

In 2004, the Victoria’s model was relaxing on the sandy beaches of the Khao Lak resort in Thailand with her fiance’ Simon Atlee. The day was beautiful and life couldn’t have been more wonderful for her, that is until Petra realized there was a gigantic wall of water coming her way and there was no way she was going to escape it. Not long before that a massive earthquake shook the globe and the resulting tsunami that she was now staring at would be known as the worst global disaster in the history of mankind.

Run as they might, the water overtook both Petra and Atlee. The two were battered by floating debris and Atlee was swept out to sea as the first waves receded. Petra would escape that fate, but would endure eight hours of agony clinging to the top of a palm tree as wave after wave pummeled against her flesh. She was finally rescued and came away from the nightmare with a broken pelvis and internal injuries.

It would take six weeks before Petra was on her feet, and over a year before the body of Atlee washed back up on the shores of Sumatra. Yet instead of caving into an emotional mess, the Victoria’s Secret superstar took her experience as a challenge and began fighting the devastating effects mother nature decided to bring. She started a relief effort known as the Happy Hearts Fund after returning to Thailand and witnessing first-hand how the once thriving land had turned into a ruin of despair and homelessness.

The following year, while still recovering and grieving, Hurricane Katrina tore through the southern United States and Petra heeded her call to arms, dashing over to give aid to those in need while the United States government sat on their fingers. Over the years her fund has helped dramatically in nearly every major natural disaster, as well as bringing technology into the slums in the Haitian area of Port-au-Prince.

And you thought the Victoria’s Secret angels just had wings because they are pretty.

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