The Realization About Love That Took Former Supermodel Paulina Porizkova '58 Years To Understand'
Paulina Porizkova
Love can be confusing. Some people go their whole lives trying to figure it out and find the right attachment for themselves. And for former supermodel Paulina Porizkova, it took her 58 years to truly understand one important thing about love.
The “accidental former supermodel, occasional actress, current writer,” as Porizkova calls herself in her Instagram bio, wrote a long, loving post on Oct. 3 about finding love with her significant other, Jeff Greenstein. In the post, she and Greenstein are hugging each other in front of a camera, smiling big, toothy smiles, almost laughing. Here's exactly what to understand about love, according to Paulina Porizkova.
“It took me 58 years to understand,” the former model wrote, “That what I wanted and needed was not Prince Charming charging into my life on a white steed to rescue me with his love, but an equal.”
She went on, writing: “And for that, I first had to figure out what I needed. And what I couldn’t do without.”
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Porizkova—who started modeling at 15, per The Guardian, and was the first Central European woman to be on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue when she was 18 according to HuffPost—wrote that she “learned” from her past relationships which also helped her view those partnerships as valuable and not “time wasted even if it felt like it at times.”
Before dating Greenstein—which appears to have started in February 2023—Porizkova was married to Ric Ocasek, lead singer of the band The Cars, from 1989 until his death in 2019. Prior to his death, the two split in 2018 and were in the process of a divorce when he died following surgery. In 2021, she dated screenwriter Aaron Sorkin.
In her Oct. 3 post about realizations about love, she went on to say that she needed to “figure out” who she was so that she could “know what an equivalent was” in terms of a partner. And her learnings can help plenty of others—whether you're single or currently in a relationship.
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“This I learned from being single, and doing a lot of self work,” she wrote, saying she did therapy, read books, meditated and more. “In those years, I took stock of the woman I had become. She was very much the same as the girl, minus the starry eyes, the boundless hope and naïveté, but with a gained understanding of gratitude and knowledge of her strength.”
She then finishes by saying the woman she discovered found “her equal” eight months ago.
As People reported, Porizkova teased Greenstein on her Instagram in April, with a silhouetted photo of her and her “mystery man” (at the time) kissing with the caption, “Love is in the air.” She also gushed about the new relationship in March on The HollywoodLife Podcast, per People, saying that she’s seeing someone new amid trust issues.
As Porizkova wrote in the closing line of her October post, Greenstein “likes to celebrate every moment” and so she’s now celebrating him on their eight-month anniversary.
Next up, read about how to nurture friendships over 50, according to psychologists.
