You're listening to a mother Neir podcast.
I left, so I take the consequences of this.
But I can't speak about what he thought or whatever, but I can speak about how I did. So I had to get on and move what I needed to do, and I created a home, I created work. I sometimes had to leave the kids to go and work. You know, they had a beautiful relationship with their dad.
You know it.
It was you do what you've got to do.
Today on no filter, we are talking about a life lived at an extraordinary scale. In the late eighties and nineties, a very small group of women became something entirely new in popular culture, supermodels. They weren't just faces for fashion, they were global celebrities as famous as the movie stars and pop icons with whom they mixed. They were shaping beauty,
culture and desire in real time. My guest today is Rachel Hunter, a New Zealand schoolgirl from Auckland who found herself catapulted from a low key upbringing at the bottom of the world, depending on your view of the world, into the most glamorous, intense, and scrutinized world, imaginable international runways, global fashion and beauty campaigns, magazine covers, and a level
of fame few people ever experience. In this conversation, we talk about what life was really like during the height of the supermodel era, the glamour, the excess, the pressure, and the power, as well as the personal chapters that unfolded alongside that public life, including love, motherhood, loss, and reenvention.
Don't forget she married a global rock star. This is a conversation about fame, identity, and what happens after you've lived one of the most visible lives of a generation, and how you learn to define yourself on your own terms. This is Rachel Hunter totally unfiltered. I have to say, okay, and this is a great thrill. Rachel Hunter, welcome to no filter.
Oh my god, thank you, thank you, thank you. That's so nice to be.
With you, So thrilled to have you here.
Anyone who saw you in I'm a celebrity, Get me out of here in the Jungle would know that you have really leant into spirituality in the form of you know, Indian immersion La la Lah incarnation. Reincarnation is a big part of that. When I was doing my deep dive on you, I realized you've already lived many lives, haven't you.
Yeah, it's you know, when I when I look back, because even when I was doing, when I was doing, I'm a celebrity, and obviously every time someone re into the camp, you'd have to go through like because some of us didn't know who we were, you know, and and when you know, I kind of had to speak to that. I was like, Okay, some will know from my modeling days, some will know from marriage, some will know from Stacy's mum, some will know from my spiritual
you know, journey and stuff. So yeah, like in one lifetime, I guess in this one, I definitely feel like I'm crushing the different modalities.
Like yes, I mean I think we all.
Get this opportunity in some way. Well, like I mean we you know, it's going that way for sure for a lot of people.
But it's very rare.
I think that people have the opportunity, which is probably a blessing and a curse, to live that publicly.
Yeah yeah, and to have.
Such a public record of who they have been at various points in their life. But what I want to do is rewind you back before we met you, which was on the world stage, and talk about your upbringing, which was in Auckland in New Zealand. And what sort of young girl, young woman were you then?
I was?
I mean when I was, you know, very little, I was a very it was very much an introvert. I was very very quiet, very very and word would follow my mum around everywhere.
I couldn't be very far up from her at all.
And you know, we used to play in the bush and we didn't have all the animals obviously that you guys have.
The menacing ones, scary ones.
You could your kids just go I mean not to say I mean a lot of people are obviously and Australia just go and there as well because that's what they used to but obviously over here. Yeah, I was just a very very inward child, and you know, growing kind of being in school was very very hard in some ways for me because I think when you are that introvert and you are in a social situation in school where you've got friends and then you have crushes.
But then I remember I had, you know this, there was a guy I think when I was like, I don't know young, and you know I was like if anyone found out that, you know, I liked you and as soon as someone found out, I would be like, okay, no, no, I don't like you anymore, because it was just like I was so into being very very private and the irony of my life. Eventually, when I turned sixteen, became
very very public. But I was a very awkward child, like you know, people used to say to me in high school, like I used to hang out at the school library and I had a couple of you know, very very good close friends, but it was more like that kind of oh, you're stuck up, you know, you got to carry it up your ass, because I mean I did I did do ballet, so I had a very rac prosture, but it was it.
Was a very yeah.
I was very very much close to my mother did ballet and was very much an introvert growing up.
What was your family structure?
There was my obviously my mum and dad. Then my sister also who was a year older than me, and she was always by my side, obviously only being fifteen months older, and so she was you know, she.
Was always a.
Big support and always around the corner ifever I needed her as such, But it was we had a very like mum was very much into herbalism and spirituality, and one minute would come home and the Mormon, you know, the Mormons would be sitting there and be like, darling, look we're going to have lovely dinner tonight with them.
And you know, the next thing, we were trotting off to the church there, and then the next thing she would be, you know, Baptist, and then she would do So there was always a variety of religious escapades that we were going to go on, and so it was. It was a very open, very loving family. Look, everybody always has that undercurrent that is there and you kind of go through, but I don't really want to get into that.
Yeah, there was kind of.
A it's literally when I hit sixteen, everything changed, Like fifteen sixteen, I had I had a blood disorder when I was around I would say, fourteen or fifteen, and Mom came home and she saw that my clothes were all on the floor and I was in bed and I was very, very sick. Later to find out that I actually had toxic plasis, which is a blood disorder for people who are kind of near cats or raw meat or whatever.
How I picked up very dangerous for pregnant women in particular.
Very very very dangerous. Yeah, fortunately it was not pregnant at.
That, but.
Jokes like that, it's like bad humor. But anyway, but I mean, I kind of left school, and you cannot deny where life takes you. And I know, and I'm just talking. I know some people go through very very very traumatic and I'm just talking in general of the normal kind of box as such.
But I mean, I.
Had been studying ballet for ten years. I was a runner at school, athletes, so I sunk everything kind of that introvertedness into a very solo sports like runner. So it's very so I wasn't really kind of you know what I mean, It was very very individual. And so when I got sick, I couldn't dance anymore because you don't have the strength to do it. I couldn't run anymore, and so all I could do was basically be at home. Even a car ride for four hours, I was exhausted,
came home. So I didn't go to school that much that year either, which was kind of fun but not.
And the next thing I knew.
When I kind of came out of that, I knew I couldn't go back to dance as much, which crushed me.
Not to go back to ballet.
So I started running and to try and get my strength back up, and then on the beaches where I met this photographer and he came up to me and said, you should be modeling.
Which is weird, right, that's totally wed. So a part of you must have thought, who's this guy?
Yeah?
I was like, that's yeah, you're like you know, and I was old enough to know, you know, the don't talk to strangers thing that we will grow up with.
You can be a model, and I was very much aware of that.
And I was like, okay, great, I'll take your card that I just think this is really weird. And so I went home and took it to my mother and anyway, we researched a little bit further and she did and I ended up doing some photos with him, which I look so awkward.
If I can find those of find them for.
You, oh, I'd love to say those.
I know they were just such.
You know, a lot of my dance was actually brought into my first photo shoots. So life prepares you somehow if you look for the obvious signs and you take sometimes those tunities, albeit the right opportunities, the ones where we do have an awareness. The ones where were like a little bit scared, but hey, what if I do it, what's going to happen?
Obviously I took my mother with me.
Do things safely, do things with discernment and all the rest of it. But life is literally mapping out for you. But sometimes you go the long way around, right or sometimes you go the short way around, depending on what way you want.
To kind of swerve on.
But this was all beautifully lined up in some ways because after that point, I just went straight to Australia. Australian vogue harp is bizarre, you know. I was meant to stay there but then got asked to go to New York and everything just went from this inward child that was just so like all I used to do was hang out and talk to my animals, you know, my dog. I used to make things for animals in
the bush. So I mean it was I was very much an introvert to go into New York City, you know, like, how does that happen in someone's personality?
You know, is actually extraordinary because we're also talking about an area that was like pre social media, and there was no way of kind of staying connected other than the phone or maybe letters, and for you to be catapulted into this other life where your mother had done a due diligence obviously absolutely, and for you to come from this kind of very solitary existence into this explosion, particularly of what forget Australia, but what New York must
have been like at the time. How were you processing that, Like was there a moment at which you would go up, this feels unreal or did it feel like it was somehow.
Meant to be playing out the way it was?
So there was a little bit of both.
There was like I just put one foot in front of the other and was like this is where I meant to walk and be at the same time, there you know, when you're working in that field, because I worked a lot, there was the point where I was like I'm burning out, Like I can't do this anymore, Like I just need some time off. So you are at an age too where you're like, what are boundaries?
Right?
You're learning boundaries at that young age.
You know, you're you're learning how to say no to adult circumstances. And I mean, obviously school does prepare you for this, but you're but I was very fortunate. I took my mum over with me at that point and she came and I was with Ford Models. So Eileen was very much a mother figure, and the Ford Agency was very motherly figure.
And there was from the right.
She was fiercely protected, protective.
So I was fortunate she had your best instincts at heart, rather than possibly opportunistically just trying to squeeze all the juice out of the lemon.
Oh.
No, she was very she was very look we I lived with her in her house.
There was quite a few. There was not quite a few of us.
There was a certain selection, and I lived with her in her townhouse with her husband and her family and stuff, and you know, we had our meals caught for so it was a very family environment. It wasn't just like a model apartment. It was it was very much a family house. And I was very, very lucky, literally handed this amazing career and a silver platter, and you know, I thought I was just do this for six months and then I go home. It didn't turn out that way whatsoever at all.
No, it did not years later, But it's it's it's like.
You just you know, people say, what the thing that you you're meant to be doing is literally in front of you. It's so true. You just need to what is what are your passions? Like, what are the things that you're attracted to? And you're like, it is. I mean not to say I was not looking to be a model whatsoever. I wanted to be a ballerina. But did ballet help me in this scenario? Absolutely did it?
You know, take me.
In this direction of meeting you know, Rod and having two beautiful children, then going on my own journey you know once you know, we broke up and all the rest of it. So it's like your your beautiful part of your life, where your soul's journey is there. It's just what other what are your choices along this way?
And some can take you the longer way around, which will happen is how I feel and summer, you know, not the shortcuts, but where you kind of sit in that flow state where you're like, how's all this happening so easily?
Yeah?
I love that you say that along the way you had been prepared for the work of being what went on to become a supermodel by the fact that you had immersed yourself so much in dance and that had been your passion, which of course would be so handy when it comes to angling and position and understanding of
your body. But also I imagine that it gave you because the work of a dancer is so intense and you have to be so disciplined, self critical, but through a lens dear discipline, critical but not critical necessarily of yourself as a person, but of what the overall form is.
Yes, absolutely so.
Did that provide some sort of protection because we know that a lot of models get eaten up by external forces, but also what's inside? Yeah, did that provide some sort of insulation for you in that world?
I mean, oh god, it's such an interesting world, the modeling world, because obviously it's changed so much now because there was certain looks that were and there was you know, there was very little diversity in that time, and so there was there were many things that we weren't aware of. And I do look at that sometimes and think, you know, there's there's critics that go back and look at those generations and.
Criticize, but it's and to me do it.
Diversity is obviously so important and that and that time it started happening. But as far as like body wise, body image all that, Like I kind of I feel like my upbringing with my mother and how she was and how much she loved her her daughters, and body image was just never a thing as such, and she
always I don't know, it was never brought up. And also there was a there was a pretty strong backbone with me where I was like, I don't give a shit what you think, like just you know, I was quite ballsy, like I wouldn't put up with much.
That's interesting.
So I don't know where that came from too, because I was such an introvert too, but I did when I was going through that whole toxic plasmosis. Just to jump back into that, I was very second moms trying
to find alternative medicines to help me get better. And she went to an eravat of doctor and she also this eravated doctor had this girlfriend who was a ballerina, and she goes, I want to do a metamorphic message on you, and I was like, MoMA's like okay, well and let she She goes, in ten days time, you will you'll feel this and you might feel that a lot of things will come up.
Well.
It was like Rachel had changed overnight. It was like I said, how I felt. I said how I feel. I don't know whether there was a permission as such there, but you know, because we don't know what we're unlocking, don't know. I mean, our bodies are these beautiful instruments, and they hold all sorts of different things, as we have read in many different books, not only psychologically, spiritually as well as as.
As our body, you know.
So I don't know what it did, but all of a sudden, there's strength and a strength with my voice came out and I said how I felt, and that just kind of kept developing and developing. So again it was another mechanism that I kind of leaned into before I actually ended up going into the modeling field. So it wasn't like I was put in any situation that I had to find my voice. It was just it had already been, you know, being prepared at that point when I got when I got it was released.
What was a metamorphic?
Like?
What what was that?
Like? What was it was a lot to do with the feet when you remember it was a lot to do with the weight. One googled it because I remember talking about this and the podcast and I was like, God, I have to google what is a metamorphic Well, obviously metamic means of transformation, but it had a lot.
To do with feet, Like there was certain areas of.
The feet and we all know that they have, you know, and reflexology there to do with the organs and all that kind of stuff.
So anyway, I just did it. But maybe it was more.
Their permission there as well, you know, like the whole thing became a whole modality of just ready to release that side of me.
I don't know, but it was great. Yes, out came the voice.
Because it's like you'd been made a promise, you'd been made a promise, and you accepting that promise, yeah, yeah, then becomes the truth of you.
Yeah. It was like this is how you could potentially feel and maybe that was like all I needed. I actually really want to feel that. And I remember feeling this the strength of me and it was like now it was the time that I needed to row, you know, And that happened.
After the break.
Rachel talks about becoming part of that exclusive and delusive group of women who defined the supermodel era. So at this point, you're you're I'm going to say running with the other supermodels. I can't even begin to imagine what it was like at the time. But you're not supermodels yet.
You're kind of just discovering each other correct, well a lot of us, so you don't know what like who is who or what is what the right So you were encountering the other women at the time, Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington.
Everybody at that time would everybody would kind of pass but there was no like everybody was working so in different places, but we would all know of each other and move around, but there was no like we're all on the same jobs at the same time, but you know, working in New York, working over in Europe, all the
rest of it. There was there was all these different jobs, so I mean most of the time you're by yourself and these scenarios doing like editory oceans or yeah, so as much as we knew, but we didn't know, but we there was always this warm smile.
Of like, you know, high we all knew. You know, it was like that knowing.
Yeah, yes, but there must have been a point and maybe it all passed in a blue where someone coined the frame super supermodel it and you were included in that.
Can you remember that.
No, because I know.
That literally was it really during that time where the George Michael video happened and it was lind I have a feeling that was coined around that time.
So that was Linda Evangelista.
I think it was Linda who ever was in that video. I feel like it was interesting to Google actually when the supermodel that that term was actually coined. But yeah, I mean you kind of all jumped into this swim of being named that, which I always found quite amusing because I was like, all I could think of was Superman.
Like that that person actually flies.
I mean we're just we're you know, we're not quite having a special you know special.
Uh No, but in the scale, through the through the prism of what the world sees, you were flying.
Yeah, it was.
It was just such an interesting time because obviously during that time I was working with Thoughts Illustrated, you know, Cover Girl, Revlon, all of those, all those different magazines and products, and I mean, especially with Sports Illustrated. It was a big time during that time. I mean all I knew was when you came to New York, it was like to get into Sports Illustrated was a really big deal and what that magazine in particular could to
potentially do to your career was pretty huge. And I remember going and seeing Julie at that time, who was the editor, and the next thing, you know, I was booked, and obviously there's great celebration around that, and then we would all work together was you know, Stephanie Seymour and everybody was just like it was just like being with your friends, you know, That's how it was. But I mean we we There was no I mean for me, there was just a really a great community sense of
community with that in some ways. I mean other people can say, but I mean for me, that's what it was.
Right, because you're.
Very good at assimilating and incorporating your environment into who you are and how you travel through it. But even with that kind of worldview and openness to experience, there must have been a time where you went, I cannot believe I'm here. I cannot believe this is happening to me.
Yeah, definitely, there was definitely. I remember when I was doing a Revlon commercial actually out in Los Angeles where basically they pecked me up in a car. I must have been eighteen, I think, and drove me to sunset my key. Then I went to.
The studio, the big movie.
Studios, and that was the smell of the warm jasmine was in the air, and it was summer, and there was like people staying that were famous, and I.
Was just like, oh my god, look at these people famous with it. You know.
It was Los Angeles, which I lived in New York, so it was like a little bit more of them, you know. And I remember going to the studio and I remember going into. It was clean and clear, was the shampoo. And I remember going in and it was this that made this lagoon in one of the studios.
Oh, and I.
Was just like, oh my god, They've literally made this like a Tarjsian lagoon in the middle of these studios. And it was just every day I got picked up, I had flowers in my room. It was so old school. It wasn't just like oh, here's your plane, take it. I'll make your flight and then you know, I'll do your own hair and makeup at the other end. I mean, this is literally what it's like more or less now,
or you have to have your own team whatever. But this was just the epitome of the time where there was you know, there was the smell of the Cusaba blanca Lily's that you smell when you walk into the room. There was a beautiful card welcome, We're looking forward to working with you, you know the cut. Like I said, it was just that was those types of jobs just blew my mind. When I used to work with Cover Girl, the kindness of the team and the flowers and the
respect and blah blah blah, those were it was. It was pretty intoxicating. So you did feel really welcomed and special and yeah, and that way you were like, oh, like I talk even in my retreats about receiving, receive the fact that you're in this beautiful place.
Just receive it. It doesn't mean ego, it.
Just means just acknowledge, right, And so those moments were really you know where you've kind of felt like this, you know when you see chickens kind of puff their chests down their little feathers like that.
It kind of felt that like this little So that was yeah, yeah.
And then you laid an egg, a golden egg for someone. Hey, when you look back at that era of girls, did you become close to any of them in particular?
Not really like like I said, we moved around so much. I've had many interactions with Al obviously Macpheerson, and she's just beautiful and kind and sweet.
But it was all the same. We were just all.
These these girls that just had this irony of this moment that happened in our lives where it was just individually we were all so different, but everyone was just very caring and kind when you'd turn up on set. I remember when one of my first shoots was a Mahn and I remember I walked around the corner and I saw her and I was just like just cold, believe my eyes the beauty and the magnificence of this woman.
And she was truly just breathtaking and just her elegance and her So there was just many moments like that where you did turn around, you know, Christy Turlington, Naomi, all of them that they just have this beautiful, the charismatic side that you're just like, wow, you know there is this but again it's not just looked, it's deeper.
There's something in there.
Yeah, that's in there, And you know, I'll never forget those times when you're actually in the rooms with them and go wow, just yeah, beautiful, beautiful energy.
In there.
That's so true because I remember once seeing on Chapel Street in Melbourne years ago a woman walking down the street who was so phenomenally beautiful. It was it was like a planet had fallen to Earth.
I looked at her before.
I realized who it was, and it was Helene and Christensen, and that led me to think, Oh, isn't that an interesting thing that there was.
Something so extraordinary about her?
So sometimes we put the cart before the horse and we think of this person's become famous because they're beautiful, but they've become famous and something in them.
Yes.
Yeah, So here's my question for you. Yeah, what was it in you? What is it in you that unlocked the world to you and drew the world's eye?
I don't know, I have no idea.
You don't know. I think I know, I think I know.
I'm not telling you.
You can tell it on the podcast so then we can listen to it.
No, you're saying that when.
Those years, the girls didn't look any different from what they looked like on the street with no makeup. You put a lot of makeup on. Mmmm. They had there was a presence and they held something there. It was Yeah, it was it was definitely yeah. I mean you look at any one of those girls even now when you walk on the walk on the street, you're like, wow, you know that's stunning.
Yeah, I don't know what it does.
Well, I think in you you have something of the Woodland creature about you.
You know, I love that coming from New Zealand, that's very.
Yeah, I think that.
I think it's that quality, like a certain sort of certainty about yourself but not but not necessarily an overconfidence or whatever, and a sort of fawn like grace, you know, and that spectacular fur on your head. They go out the main Hey, who has captured you in a way from your career in a photographic shoot or whatever? That that that you liked the most.
Stephen Morselle, hands down has to be one of the most of all photographers of all time and for me and I remember working with him and at some point he said, can you stay behind because I need to try this for this a model to try for this cover for Italian Vogue. And we stayed behind and at that point I remember used to take my records because I used to like DJing and my oh well steel, I know it was going to be such a big thing.
But going back to sta.
He and what was it? What was it?
He manages to get you and transform you And it wasn't until remember back then, it wasn't until three months later that you'd actually.
See the cover. But my agent actually got.
Calls going, who's this new goal on the cover of the magazine? That is when you become to me a model as you're he's able to transport you out from how you look into something that is still you.
But it's like, hang on a second, is that or is that?
That?
To me?
Was but ye's still It was the hair, the makeup. But he is truly one of the most incredible photographers. And I worked with him a few more times and it was just his artisticness, the way he presented himself when he walked on set, just everything across the board, and he was truly he's truly magic when it comes to.
Working with What did you see in the cover that surprised you?
Simplicity that I was like, how could someone change not change me? Because you could still see me and you'll see in the cover I have literally it was a rug around me with a little bit of a bras showing dead straight hair, and then the photography and the lighting was just insane, and it was that simple, and it was simplicit simple, the simplicity of it, but it
was I don't know how he does it. He's just magic and with his team of hair and makeup, it's all this beautiful concoction of mystery and magic that he creates and photography.
It's interesting that I think you sometimes project the energy that gets sent back to you. Well probably a lot of the time, and because you seem to have this view of the world at the time that was kind of wholesome. Yeah, that maybe it didn't attract some of those basic energies like envy or jealousy or competition. Do you think you were exempt from that or do you think you just didn't see it.
I just thought it was really bizarre that this that this world could be what it was, you know, like that were we really earning what we were earning? Like That's why I said that we were just do this for six months, because what do we do for a living? But again later did I find out we worked long hours? We did, we were creating so much content. But at the same time, you know, the flying, all the rest of it. I was like tell someone to kind of
do what we were doing. You know, it takes a lot of It did take a lot as well as Actually what I was going to say about that is Sports Illustrated had apoulted you into more of a across America, like into everybody's home, so that we also when we were doing Sports Illustrated, we were also on press kits. So had we started having voices, we could say our opinions, we said what we So the model was no longer just on the pages of the magazines.
It became more that we had.
This opportunity to talk and voice and the next thing, most of us were doing workout videos or you know or whatever we were brought into you know, personal appearances or whatever it was. So there was a shift then that kind of brought us more onto It wasn't just the pretty face. It ended up becoming right, yes, you real what three D absolutely thank you.
And that that's the superpart, isn't it. That's the superpart. That's what set you apart from possibility you come before.
Yeah, see, this is why you're so good at what you do.
You kind of like put because yeah, you do the whole three day you're you're you're in people.
Yeah, you speak.
You started, you know, doing not any products, but speaking for different charities. So there was that was more of the layers started coming in at that time. So yeah, that was that was pivotal and probably why that that happened.
And of course that grows your own confidence as well.
Yeah. Yeah, So to.
Be beautiful is one thing, and a lot of that is a blessing from the gods. But then to fall in love with yourself enough that you can feel free to speak, yeah, is another level of development.
Yeah. And also I didn't really like I was a geeky at school like I had. I was I'm curly frizzy here, and.
I didn't see myself as beautiful like I was like, okay, guys, I'll go along with this, no problem if that's what you think.
But you know, I didn't.
Understand why, why the why. I was like, great, I'll do you know, go and do l magazine and Hawaii and we'll do this, and we'll do a perfume campaign and all the rest of it. But I never thought, oh, I'm you know, I'm at never thought of that, always stayed in the innocence of it.
I think always.
Which sounds extraordinary given the time. Times, heady times. And then of course you met your husband, Rod Stewart, Yeah, which is another level of I mean his fame, Yeah, the adulation of the world, his talents, blah blah blah.
Yeah.
How old were you then?
Were you like twenty end of twenty Like I was just about to turn twenty one, And again I just didn't think I was like love great. I never thought so deeply about everything. There was never any deep contemplation. It was more this is this is where I'm meant to be, This is what this is, this is what I'm feeling, this is what this is, and to me, this is what's living right. This is where life just exudes itself and it just becomes so abundant because you're just in this, you know, overthinking.
Or over analyzing and getting into the head that was just this. That's the beauty of that age. Almost.
I don't even know if you can remember the answer to this. You might not be able to remember. So you take yourself back to when you were nearly twenty one. You're in the club. You're in the club, you're dancing with girls. I imagine having great time. Rod Stewart's there. Who spoke to who first? Did you speak to him or did he speak to you? And what was the exchange?
Well, it was actually in Los Angeles at the Roxbury Nightclub and that was more of like not so much a big club. It was like this hangout place and he was over in the corner and Sports Illustratia just brought out these workout tapes that myself and I think Al and Cheryl were on and he was kind of mimicking me and my workout thing, and so there was just this really awkward thing.
So he was seen much. Yeah, he'd seen it.
Ah, Yeah, and kind of that's where a kind of the odd communication came along, and then I ended up he invited my friend and I to go somewhere the next day, and then that's kind of where it kind of all went up.
But he was the first one to kind of break the attention.
Mock to mock you, to mock a.
Little bit in a very cheeky, sweet way, as he would.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, comedy humor always wins.
I totally agree. You never laugh so much. Yeah, he's very very funny, very funny.
I mean, I'm just trying to place myself into into the mind and heart of someone who's meeting you for the first time, which I understand you met in a nightclub that you would have been so refreshingly like you refer to your own innocence, you're something wholesome and fresh about you.
To someone who at that point.
Was stratigerically famous, I think would have been so attractive. Do you know, almost impossible to believe that you're going to meet this gorgeous girl in New York who's so open to the possibilities of.
Things, because we all put ourselves in our mid forties, which is probably when when around when Roden I met.
And it's true, by that point you're like going, you're kind of getting them human calculator out and going, I have to be grown up now, right, So all that curiosity and that those qualities are kind of but it's not to say that's how he felt, because I think he was this amazing person who always has that curiosity with him and who's always kind of like he's very, very wise, and at the same time he has this ability to be consistently you know, curious and open and says how.
He feels and blah blah, blah. But I can't speak for him. It's just my observation.
But yeah, humor, humor.
So much human and that's the thing has been a we got married, you know, within three months I was you know, with three weeks I was engaged, three months I was married, and then off we kind of had this incredible marriage. Obviously, I tuned the classic twenty seven twenty eight, which is a satin return which people talk about.
Which is where am I? What am I going? It's even when I think I was with a therapist.
And is that rights?
That is that part of that seven or nine year cycle where we renew or replenish.
Question things.
I think that satin return happens every twenty some twenty twenty seven years twenty but you see that why it happens at that time is because when saturin returns in that time after you've been born, it's much heavier than it's like it's almost like divinely done gone and said check on with yourself.
Are you where you.
Want to be? Do you want to be doing what you're doing? Are you actually and your purpose and your in the walk life?
Where you're going?
So that satin returns is actually a thing where between twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine thirty I think is the is the kind of ballpark there where you do kind of go I don't know, you could think about when you were around that age, was there a pivotal time where you kind of made this juxtposion And the majority of people will be like, yeah, I did.
And it's a beautiful reminder.
I think of just I mean looking, I mean kind of segueing off this, but of looking and going ultimately whatever and however all of us were created, there is this dynamic where we all get this check in. But I mean, that's kind of what happened is I kind of was like where am I going? What am I doing? And you know, Renee Lee to be a mother that young, I mean I was twenty three.
How old were they your children?
Then?
How old were they?
Renee and Liam were about five and seven at that time when I broke up?
Sorry?
But was that for you to be where you were at your career and to have children that young, like just to in the flow of things and your life and your marriage to a man you loved. The natural extension of that for you was having children. But that must have been shocking to other people in the modeling community or people who were managing your career or did they just go along with it?
No, I don't really, I don't really care about what people faith like I was like this is you know, of course, for people who were close to me and spoke to me, you know, there was conversations, but ultimately, I mean, it's my decision, right listen, two most important people of Nane and Liam out of the whole thing.
And at the same time.
You you know, I had big questions for myself and you know, now as the kids are older, they understand those. And I had to take that chance to see where I was kind of meeting myself, where I was meeting myself at at that time in my life. And whether that took me back to Rod or it didn't, I didn't know at that point, but I knew I had to take that time to be able to make that choice, and I had to take the risk of like of that and you have to be brave sometimes, you know,
But it was what it was. I mean, I can't I've got an amazing family and I've got amazing step kids, and you know, it all works out, you know, ultimately.
Well, you know, that's an interesting thing because through the years it's just been a kind of running narrative that either Rod or you or his wife now Penny or whatever are very good at harmony, which is not always the case. Yeah, so that there seems to be a vibe of a big extended family.
Yeah, I mean there just as I mean, I mean, hopefully we've we create that evolution in all of ourselves, now right, I mean there just has to be in some ways, you know, otherwise.
Yes, But look, often there's a tendency.
Depending on circumstances. It all depends on circumstances. It all depends on circumstance, though, I mean, there was a it was I was you know that it depends on circumstances for everybody.
So when you've had this epiphany that or this this magnetic draw to the world that you need more of the world or to see who Rachel Hunter is in the world, what what was the manifestation of that from that point? So when you've you've left your marriage, but you have your two children, how did the world look for you at that point and how did it look different?
It was Look, it's you know, when I look back at it. I'm like, going, God, you had a lot of guts to do that. You know. It was it was, you know, we went I went off and you know, I mean my work continued and that was up and down, and you know, to me, it was just creating a home in something beautiful for obviously Renee and Liam, and then navigating that through the you know, through what it is to be a parent and a single parent and working through that.
But you just do it.
I mean, listen, there's, like I said, circumstance I left. We were fine, you know what I mean, Like I left, so I keep the consequences of this and so do you know, so.
Did it whatever.
But I can't speak about what he thought or whatever, but I can speak about how I did.
So I had to get.
On and move what I needed to do, and I created a home. I created work. I sometimes had to leave the kids to go and work. You know, they had a beautiful relationship with their dad.
You know.
It was it was you do what you've got to do.
Was home at this point was home.
La always la?
Yeah?
Yeah?
And then how connected were they with the New Zealand part of you.
I would go home every literally every year or every probably twice a year, once a year or twice a year. I would always come home and bring the kids back home as well. Yeah, so I've always been connected to home. I mean, look, it's only twelve hours from Los Angeles. And yes, you know, Australians and New Zealanders are so used to leaving like we're good travelers. So yeah, it wasn't hard. Yeah.
Coming up next, Rachel shares the advice her mother gave her before she passed and how it changed the way Rachel lives her life. I'm curious about this unfolding of yourself in the world. You described your mum as metaphysical, which I love that as a description. At this point, are you connecting more with that side of yourself even though you're still very much immersed in that more physical world of modeling.
Yeah, so Abden flowed all the way throughout my life. So I was very very religious when I was younger, got baptized in front of the church, you know, speaking in tongues.
Oh really was it Pentecostal?
You know?
Oh all of it? Oh yeah, really? Yeah, like the whole thing.
And because when people say, especially when I'm you know, talking about indeed, like people go, I hope you see Jesus. I'm like I have, I've been with raw but and you know I I so I would dip in announce. And then I went and studied with a white witch in Salem, Massachusetts, who was amazing, who was very pagan. My mom was very kind of pagan. My mom, you know, after she died, I found like all these to cards. She would have all these motions, like motions and potions.
She had all these potions and she used to be an incredible artist and she would draw.
Aliens to you name it.
We have touched on it more or less. Nothing dark or anything, but I mean some people could, depending on their religion, called something dark, but you know it was.
It was so incredible.
Like I know, so many people find you know, my marriage and everything interesting, but I just I love the metaphysical world because there's so many entry points into this, whether it's religion, whether it's spirituality, whether it's any of these things. Because there's this beautiful, intuitive, energetic side to us that is just waiting to be explored and helps
make these decisions and all this kind of stuff. So there is that kind of very human side where off form, you know, and what is that internal world?
What is our inner world as such?
And it's going to be different for everybody, so there's no fight of which is.
Wrong or right. But I loved how my mum.
Just just dove into kind of whatever offered she kind of saw or ever knocked on her door, like when she was when she invited the Mormon zone when they were going around doing their Yeah, she would say, come in for dinner, and we would have dinner and we would have these two men sitting at the table, like she just one year she decided, right, we're all going off sugar. You know, you girls are you know, going to have carab for chocolate. You guys are going to
have honey instead of sugar. But we just she was magic. She was like living with Like it's like practical magic. Right, you're living with this woman who's magical. But at the same time she was late that at home. But when she died, I asked her what she regretted, and she said, I regret not fully being who I am.
Right, this was a heavotal, yes, heavital conversation that we had.
I heard you say that to your castmates in the jungle, when you shared that with them. That's a really profound thing for someone to say that they regretted, Yeah, not having been more themselves.
Yeah, and honestly, how much do we all care about what people think of us and why we're doing things?
When she said that to you, was were you having a moment together? Was it bedside? Was it literally she was about to leave the earthly realm?
Because that's a she actually gave you a gift.
Yes, so she was three rigged away.
Listen when you're kind of sorry, I don't mean to say listen, but it's just my form of speech.
But you know, when you're going, I'm listening, I know.
I was like, I don't mean to say listen, but you know, it's just the way I'm kind of she like, I remember going to doctor's appointments and we just it happened. All this happened quite quickly, within fifteen months. I know, not that quickly for some people who don't have gone through this process. But I remember coming across, you know, going to one of her doctor's appointments, and I was like, can you just tell me? Is she going to die?
Some like I need to please give me something? And even the doctor was had tears in her eyes and she's like, it's not long. And I had to break I told them to go to the bathroom when I asked the doctor this, and when she came back, I was like, I'm going to have to tell her this, like I and she remember I was driving across the bridge. I was driving across the bridge bridge in Auck, London. I said, Mom, this, you know, had I had to tell her and she was like, Rachel, you're always being so truthful.
She goes, I know.
And so these conversations happened, and one time I was in bed with her and I said, Mom, what do you regret? And she goes and that's when she said, I regret not being fully who I am and she goes, I wish I'd had the long cigarette, you know, on the thing and not telling everybody out there to smoke.
Either is or I'm just saying what she.
Was and was it experiences or.
You know, listen, she did. She did have her moments in her life, but it was more some of us try and hide who we truly are because we want to be appreciated by or be accepted by our surrounding mates or whatever.
Or she said, because I know.
She was talking about the spirituality, right, she was talking about spirituality, and I was like that, Mum, you were never not who you were. But I understand what you're saying because we all saw your how you were spiritually. But she goes, I just wish I was that. She wanted to be the eccentric one, you know, the eccentric person because she was also the artist. She wanted to put on her kimono, and she eventually did in the end, but she's like, why didn't I do that my whole life,
you know, because that's who she was. But again she had many different lives too, Like she was a photographer, she was an artist, she was all these things, but that one thing and I don't know whether it was what it was, but it hit me so hard of like it and it came down to she somewhere along the line, she cared too much of what other people thought and judged her, and it's time not to do that. And that's after she passed away. I was like, I'm going to India to move through this grief. I don't
know why. I mean, I've been to India for to her beauty, but I was like, I have to go move this grief through my body.
And went to India.
But what a what a powerful message to say, Like you said.
Well, it was like throughout your whole life she had given you.
The gifts, mainly the gift of feeling free to travel through the world and experience things always. Yeah, that maybe she had not had for herself.
Yeah, she definitely tried.
She was well, not so much that I know what you mean by in her own version of what that was, but she definitely traveled, and she definitely she was definitely part of like the New Zealand Psychic Board, Like she was very, very psychic.
She was very she was all these things.
And it's it's gone back generations, right and through generations, through different Yeah, my great grandfather, my grandmother, all of them. So in spirituality kind of is a very touchy point with you know, I mean, because all of us think of things so differently.
Yes, and it tends to be deeply held.
It's either really deeply held by people or people try and keep it at arm's lengths because they can't deal with it at all.
Yeah.
Yeah, And at that point I knew when I was in India and I was going through my yoga training there because I was like, I have to just do yoga, because I'd been doing yoga for twelve years at that point, and I was like, I have to just go and understand you.
I don't know why, but I just ended up there.
I googled the place, went there, and I wanted to bolt like ten thousand times. I was like, I have to leave this place late. This is weird. I felt so uncomfortable, and see all the other stuff flowed, but this felt uncomfortable. This felt like, you know, like cheese greater inside. This felt comfortable, but I knew I had to stay.
Was it the physical yoga? I mean it's the same thing, but was.
It physical physical?
But it was that it was creating that shift inside. That was that agitation of staying somewhere long enough because it's a twenty one day course, so staying and moving through those so many times I actually wanted to bolt out of there. And then I returned again to a month later, I returned into another course, and all the stuff rose again. And then I found out that the media had somehow found out I was in Indiana and I was doing these yoga courses, and I thought, oh
my god, everyone's going to think I'm weird. There's my mother. Everyone's going to think I'm weird. And my teacher ended up turning around to me and said, you've got two choices. Either you leave or you don't keep passing this on
through your generations and changed this. And so I stayed, and I stayed, and I stayed, and I ended up coming back to New Zealand and doing tours around New Zealand talking about meditation, breath work, exactly what my mother said, like, be who you are, don't be shameful, don't be shamed about spirituality, don't be shamed about whatever you want. If you want to pick up tenatorial cards, if you want to go to a psychic, if you want to whatever.
You want to do, just do it. I don't even care.
If it was like I want to become a pottery or whatever it is, and people showed up to it and started showing up, and that was twenty eighteen. Yeah, and so then it just kind of went from there.
And then so your decision to come to the Jungle Show, what was that process and what was that born from?
That? Was?
Well, I haven't done anything really on TV for some time. Yes, And also I was like where am I at like as far as Rachel is and do I you know, because I was like, oh, I don't want to do celebrity. Get me out of here, like you know this and that, and there's you know, some people do it, some people don't do it. Depending on where they are, they create
blah blah blah blah blah, ego, ego, ego, ego. And I was like, you know what, I'm at this place where I just want to go and just blossom and meet people and share who I am now, like whatever. And of course obviously there's the charity concept in there, of course, which is the number one thing. But at the same time you can like yees, so I just I said yes to.
It this time. I was just like yes.
And it's I think the Australian version such a great version of it because it does have this quality about it that is a little bit less, has that little bit less of that kind of gossip. You know.
It's just it's a nice it's a nice stories. Yes what I can say about that.
It's more it kind of lends itself to harmony and people finding the beauty in each other individually and as a group. Whereas the English one I think is much more competitive.
Yeah, and I think bottom line is like, yeah, we go into celebrities and everybody has this bitch of mon on Instagram.
Oh I don't know that one. I don't know that person. Why is that person that?
Ultimately, you know what we're breaking down here, people, is we're showing that everyone's human being everyone, no matter where you are, what you do, all the rest of it. We're all going through a process and we're all trying to you know, ultimately, that's it. And I know this privilege here, and I know there's money certain things, and
there's you know that some people haven't this money. Some people are as easier of your famous said all the talk and talk, but actually just walk the walk and just walk it do you and have that like and make those choices. But ultimately we're all human. What all of us shows that human side.
Well, when you say human side, because you were very lovely in the jungle and you kind of had a den mother vibe. And when I say mother, I just mean in that feminine sort of no nurturing energy, right, but then when you got nominated, you really did not like it.
So there's no doubt I have a competitive side. I couldn't have lasted. I don't think there's and I'm not ashamed of it, like I mean, you know, and ultimately it hurts.
You just made friends, yes, and that's the process that you know it's necessary, but it doesn't mean that it's still not like what.
I know, you're.
Hurt, like Rebecca love Mia or all of them, all of them, we made friends and that's the thing, Like, I mean, I know people have some ideas, but what I hope is like Sorel, I loved like she was. She was in the elephant graveyard for three days, but the moment she came into camp, we all had dinner there. She was not the first one to go, hey, I
haven't eaten them three days. Can I go first? She never pulled one stop like that, and she says, how it is she's actually I yeah, every single person had this. So yeah, I got fiery at the end because what I saw was an alliance starting to happen. Because I knew once we were going to be petted against each other. I was like, this is an alliance and this can get really ugly fast, you know, because whether you say, oh, I'm doing it because you are the one.
Who can do the trial or because you can cope.
And emotionally, Dad, you've just created this, like these friendships and you're like what why Yes, so again it shows that that human side. And if I'd stayed in, who's to say what what would have come out at that point?
I think I would have been a little bit more.
Yeah, I don't know, I'm not very good at alliance, as I kind of say no.
But part of so what you got from it was exactly what you wanted.
Yeah, do you know what I mean?
Like to both see yourself in it clearly and to allow yourself to be seen, which is liberating. And of course, because you're human, everything that you're presenting is not always going to be sanitized.
And your best angle and you're very good at angles. You know.
I looked back and I was like, oh my god, Like the light was so bad. But you know, but.
You're right, you just go it's it's it's it's a really insanely humbling experience.
Yeah, when you think of it now and you've just come back from a retreat. By the way, we have to tell no filter listeners this, which is why we've probably really gone deep on the spiritual aspect of things. But when you reflect back on your time safe in the jungle or the steps that lead you there, what would you pass on to your children like your mother's parting gift was to you.
I honestly would continue to say what she said because I really think it's a very dense, deep thing and
about caring what other people think. I think there's a lot of that, Like there's a part of us obviously that you're you're I'm not saying don't be empathetic towards people, but I'm talking about like really allowing the strong, like that's that part of you that is you, and never apologizing for you, you know, in the same way as she as she said, because I think we're still moving through caring because society's built that way correct, like in some ways, So I guess it isn't asn't.
I think we're getting better at it. I really do.
I think we're getting that beautiful, strong, not in your face kept I didn't care what you think about me, Da, Da, And yeah, there's still I'm trying to figure out the best way to say this is we call it, like, you know, like the truth of who, like the truth of who you are is hard. It's hard to stay in that state because obviously we flucture. I'm not saying that other people aren't true to who they are, but
we do adjust and adjustments. Of course, we have to make adjustments because there is things that you know, we have to do.
But I think when.
There's that sense of control, like there's a lot, I mean, there's a lot going on in the world right now, the sense of being controlled. There's a control aspect. There's freedom of speech. Are we allow freedom of speech because then there's repercussions of that, and there's this, and there's that. So I think moving through these times is to stay
true to who you are. But also I would say the one thing, you know how people kind of tend to go back and blame the generation before because they did this and that wasn't appropriate and da da dah. Get off those high horses. We have the phones, we're zoned in on this so many hours a day. Go out and see nature because I mean the deterioration of nature too, you know, and you know.
I am the beauty of it. It's restorative as well.
Hey, yeah, are you are you in love with anybody or is anybody in love with you.
I'd actually have to really think about that question. By the way, Love, I am in this great place in my life where I have had beautiful boyfriends, I have had great husband, I've had two beautiful children. I am through menopause the other end, and I have incredible freedom and can do whatever I want when I want to do it. And I love I absolutely adore and love men. But I am just in my flow state. I'm loving it. There's certain points and menopause where you know.
I heard you say in your podet life becomes.
A different thing.
Love, Yes, love becomes a different at a different place, and it may not be overly sexually driven or any of things.
And I'm gonna just say it how it is.
And I am wanting to show up in a completely different way. And it's still to be sensual, still, to be attractive, still, to be you know, had energy still all these things and if someone comes into my life, great, But I still I've never.
Felt so much energy. I am lucky I didn't.
I actually dropped sugar and bread. That was what I kind of did through my menopause. But I think still to have that kind of I call it like the moisteness or the or the juice, the moist a female and the juiciness of being a female and not too dry, but not saying oh, I'm no longer with you, know. No, I adore men. I respect them, I love their viewpoints. I love being around men. At the same time, is
it a different place in my life. Absolutely, I have more of this boundless love for everything rather than just one isolated idea. I'm not talking about loads of men. I'm just talking about in general.
The headline.
I haven't been in a relationship at all for god well ten years.
No, since twenty ten.
Oh yeah, that's fifteen.
Yes, I think you know.
I find that interesting because you said in the Jungle, I think when maybe Barry Brady was asking you about that period of your life or whatever, when you met Rod Stewart that had those heavy days or whatever, and you said it was really interesting, I kind of felt like a chameleon on a rock. Do you remember saying that I felt like the chameleon on the rock? Yes,
and I love that. But then I also thought, get, I get your analogy, except the whole point of the chameleon is that the chameleon is not seen, whereas you have always been so seen.
That's interesting.
I probably want to be the chameleon.
Well, just that that you thought that you were blending in so seamlessly with this world. But your Rachel Hunter, we see you, we see you, you know?
Is that funny because that's the same thing as I thought of my mum. I'm like, you don't think you're spiritual. I think everyone consume your spiritual. Yeah, it's the same thing, right, Like we don't see who we are because we're we're so stuck to wan to like elevate to the norms, like be humble, be this, be that. I guess, Yeah, you're right, maybe I'm not really a chameleon.
Yeah, maybe you take Maybe you're not supermodel, super guru, super yogi, supermum Rachel Hunter.
I really want to go on one of your retreats. I think, Oh you've.
Come any time.
Thank you so much for sharing yourself with us.
Oh, thank you.
You're just a delight.
Oh well you're a brilliant, amazing what you're able to get out of people, Because I think I just love the way that you interview and stuff.
I haven't felt that in a long long time, So thank you.
It's communion, isn't it Yeah? Rachel Hunter was and is one of a rare group of women who defined an era, and what makes her story so compared telling is not just what she achieved, but how she's.
Continued to evolve beyond it.
Today, her life looks very different to the one she lived at the height of the supermodel years. It's quieter, more grounded, and guided by intuition rather than expectation. As she told us, one of the most profound turning points came in the final advice her mother shared with her before she died, to stop worrying about what others think and to fully be herself, a parting gift that continues to shape the life she's building now. Thanks for listening
to No Filter. The executive producer of No Filter is Bree Player. Audio production is by Jacob Brown, and video editing is by Josh Green. This episode was recorded at Session in Progress Studios and I'm your host Kate Lanebrook.
I'll see you next Monday for another treat.
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters that this podcast is recorded on