It was at the age of 18 that Adriana Karembeu left her native Slovakia to try your luck in Paris. Spotted by the Next agency, she then began her career as a model by walking for renowned designers such as Yves Saint Laurent, Givenchy And Versace. Her beauty and devastating charm quickly opened the doors to success for her. However, behind this international success and her breathtaking beauty, Adriana Karembeu did not have an easy start to life.
On May 2, the former model published a book entitled Free. In this book, Adriana Karembeu looks back unvarnished on her childhood marked by her father’s violence. The show 50 minutes inside, broadcast this evening on TF1, met the former model who became a mother six years ago. A touching encounter in which Adriana Karembeu lifted the veil on what a child victim of abuse can feel.
“I’m damaged when I arrive”
When she arrived in France, Adriana Karembeu spoke neither French nor English. However, she is not going to let herself be defeated and will continue the castings, until it works and she breaks through. This profession, that of model which is the dream of many young women, will save her.
“I’m damaged when I arrive [à Paris]“, she explains, “I have no confidence in myself. And suddenly, I move into a profession where I receive compliments“. She explains that the compliments she receives during this time will have a therapeutic effect on her. “This is exactly what I needed“.
“At first, I told myself that it was normal, I deserve it”
When she was just a little girl, Adriana Karembeu was confronted for the first time with her father’s violence. A violence that she does not understand, but thatit will integrate as being a certain normality. “At first I told myself that it was normal, I deserve it, surely“, she then explains. And when asked if it is proper for the child to forgive his parents, she explains that parents are the only two people in the world who are supposed to love their child.
“And it comes from my father, obviously, he is an adult, so he must know everything, it’s my fault“, continues Adriana Karembeu. A sentence loaded with meaning which implies that a child victim of abuse does not necessarily question the treatment he receives. “I did something unacceptable, that’s why I tried to improve myself, to be better in my father’s eyes“. If Adriana Karembeu had integrated her father’s violence as normal, her normality, she nevertheless explains that she tried to please him. The former model explains that as a child, she did everything to fit the image of the perfect little girl. Be good, top of the class, don’t get dirty, in vain. A difficult daily life which led him to say that, ultimately, it would perhaps be better if she did not exist.
“I was scared…”
After leaving footballer Christian Karembeu, the former model remarries second marriage to André Ohanian, a businessman of Armenian origin. With him, she will become the mother of a little girl named Nina, born in 2018. But deciding to become a mother was not an easy decision for Adriana Karembeu. “I was afraid of doing it wrong or reproducing things that weren’t right“, she explained.
It was her second husband who allowed her to change her mind, finally encouraging her to become a mother. “It was my husband who made me change my mind. At one point, he said to me: ‘no, stop, stop there, you are going to be a wonderful mother‘“.
