You Only Get One Life by Brigitte Nielsen Read Free Book Online

The grades that got me there had been excellent but I might as well still have been at school. Education was what my parents wanted for me but I was being stared at openly again and I knew it wasn’t going to work out. I couldn’t take all the bullshit and start from scratch as the awkward giraffe trying to do her best to be accepted; I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to study.
    I was still only 16, very young to be at university, and modelling looked as if it could be my way out. If I left Denmark for a couple of years, I thought, worked abroad and picked up some other languages, I would actually get points to add to my degree when I returned. My decision didn’t exactly delight my parents, but we agreed that it could be beneficial to do a couple of years out in the real world to find out what I really wanted to study. I had their blessing.
    My father’s practical attitude was something I would beforever grateful for. His regular existence gave him no idea as to what I might be heading into and yet he didn’t try to stop me. Even though I was only a teenager he was prepared to let me be grown-up enough to leave home and explore the world. It was everything I’d dreamed of. Finally, I was going to be one of those birds I’d watched for so many hours.
    I didn’t think about the loneliness of the life I was choosing: I didn’t imagine what it might mean when my mother and father weren’t there or when handsome Italian playboys tried to pass me cocaine and told me, ‘It’s great, nothing to worry about – you’ll feel wonderful!’ My family wouldn’t be able to give me a big hug when I’d gone to my hundredth audition and got yet another curt rejection. There would be no home-cooked backup to save me from going hungry because once more I hadn’t made enough money to eat.
    My head was filled only with the months I’d spent doing Danish catalogues and fashion shoots with friendly photographers who all told me how great I was, how beautiful I looked and how fabulous I seemed. I’d taught myself how to work the light and how to pose and look effortless: you have to be able to work at positioning yourself and be in harmony with the camera. Though I couldn’t explain it, I found that I naturally picked up techniques that could take others years to perfect – I just seemed to be born with whatever skill was required and I hardly needed to learn anything at all. You see the same thing with footballers who have a certain innate rhythm and approach to their game which works. They instinctively know how to position themselves on the field in just the right place – and either you can do that or you can’t.
    I still remember the first cheque I received the week after I made my debut as a model. The library and the bakery had paid a little bit of money – and I mean tiny – and half of that I gave to my dad. But there was something different about my first proper pay and I really felt I was very cool: I had made money out of something that I had always thought I didn’t have in me. It was just a couple of hundred kroner (Danish crowns), which back then was probably worth something in the region of £100–120. I’d earned in a day what would have taken me months in the bakery. But the amount wasn’t important: it was the envelope with the modelling agency’s stamp – the official stamp! I ran through the house to find my mum and show her the cheque.
    ‘Okay,’ she smiled, ‘but you’d better put that in the bank – or at least save half and you can use the rest for something important.’ Something important! Of course, I immediately called Susanne and we took the bus to Gråbrødre Torv, where we each had a whole beer to ourselves. This time we weren’t going to have to share. I saw a short-sleeved shirt that I’d wanted and I bought that too. My family had never been well-off and sometimes my grandmother made jumpers for me – with an uncanny instinct for using the most revolting colours possible –