Pubdate: Thu, 28 Mar 2002
Source: Times, The (UK)
Copyright: 2002 Times Newspapers Ltd
Contact:  http://www.the-times.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/454
Author: Tim Reid

CATWALK'S QUEEN OF THE TANTRUMS 'LACKS FRANKNESS'

HER former assistant describes her as the supermodel from hell. Victoria 
Beckham called her a complete cow. And yesterday Mr Justice Morland said 
she lied on oath.

The tantrum queen of the catwalk might have won her case yesterday but it 
has not improved her reputation.

Capricious, hot-tempered, impossible to deal with, and that is just her 
friends talking, even Naomi Campbell was forced to admit during 
cross-examination last month that her behaviour was notorious and that she 
had a reputation for tantrums.

Yesterday the judge was even more blunt. "She has shown herself to be over 
the years lacking in frankness and veracity with the media and manipulative 
and selective in what she has chosen to reveal about herself. I am 
satisfied that she lied on oath."

Piers Morgan, the Editor of The Mirror, is now keen to see Miss Campbell 
back in the witness box on perjury charges after that damning rebuke.

Her startling witness box confession that she is a drug addict was also the 
most graphic declaration yet that the fashion world operates in a blizzard 
of cocaine.

The drug suppresses appetite but regular use makes users irritable and 
paranoid. Miss Campbell's behaviour changed from awkward to ferociously 
unpredictable.

Friends from her childhood and teenage years recall her as a sweet, quiet 
and charming girl. But the court was played footage of Miss Campbell, as 
supermodel, in full tantrum flight, tussling with a woman after she had 
filmed her without permission.

Kate Moss, her fellow supermodel, partner in hedonistic crime, and another 
recovering cocaine addict, said on the film: "You called her an ugly bitch 
with the head of an alien."  Pure Cambell.

Her entry into the world of fashion designers and model agents came when 
she was only 15. Beth Boldt, a talent spotter for the model agency Elite, 
saw Miss Campbell in Covent Garden. "Excuse me, you're beautiful," she 
said. "Have you ever thought of modelling?"   Before long she was earning 
AUKP1 million a year and was beginning to find cocaine irresistible. It was 
to change her into a sharp-tongued prima donna.

Robert de Niro, another former lover, called her "an exhausting woman"  . 
She became notorious for her offensive language. She was arrested for 
allegedly assaulting her personal assistant Georgina Galanis.

In 1993, her agency dropped her, although it later took her back. John 
Casablancas, of Elite, called her manipulative, scheming, rude. "You cannot 
imagine the pleasure I had in sacking her. She was odious."

Now she is in therapy and attending anger management classes. But Michael 
Gross, author of Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women, said 
yesterday: "Models have been taking drugs since the 1920s and they always 
will. The only thing that changes is the substance. It's like fashion."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth