Paulina Porizkova

About Paulina Porizkova

Paulina Porizkova is a Moravia-born Swedish supermodel, actress, author and feminist, who holds dual U.S. and Swedish citizenship. At 18 years old, in 1984, she became the first woman from Central Europe to be on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. She was the second woman (after Christie Brinkley) to be featured on the swimsuit issue's front cover consecutive times (1984 and 1985). She joined judging in America's Next Top Model in Cycles 10–12.

In June 2017 The New York Times published in its pages her op-ed piece "America Made Me a Feminist". Born in Prostějov, Czechoslovakia, Porizkova was a toddler when her parents fled Czechoslovakia to Lund, Sweden, to escape the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion. She was left in the care of her grandmother. Czechoslovak authorities would not allow her parents to reclaim her, and the ensuing battle was widely publicized in the Swedish press, making Porizkova a cause célèbre.

After a failed rescue attempt, in which her pregnant mother returned to Czechoslovakia and was shortly detained by the national police and then placed under house arrest, international political pressure led by Olof Palme caused the communist government to allow the Pořízek family to be reunited after seven years. Porizkova acquired Swedish citizenship.The reunion was soon ended when Porizkova's father left the family, and her parents filed for divorce, and her father refused to pay child support for Paulina and her younger brother. Porizkova and her father have been estranged since her youth. Her mother, a midwife, remarried at least two additional times and as of 2010 was reported to be serving in the Peace Corps in Uganda.