Read them in the following list!
1. Gisele Caroline Bündchen was born on July 20, 1980 to Vânia Nonnenmacher – a bank clerk pensioner, and Valdir Bündchen – a university teacher and writer, in Três de Maio, Rio Grande do Sul, southern Brazil.
2. Gisele was discovered at the age of jus 14, by the Elite modeling agency at a shopping mall in São Paulo the very next year and was selected for a national contest, Elite Look of the Year. She came in as a runner, losing to Claudia Menezes from Bahia. She then moved to São Paulo to launch her modeling career.
3. For her ability to walk in towering heels, even on a slippery runway, got her the title – “the Body” from McQueen, which boosted her bookings in no time.
4. Her native language is Portuguese, but she is also fluent in Spanish, English and Italian. She even studied German in her school.
5. She dated a Brazilian actor – Rodrigo Santoro the same year, and this relationship also didn’t last long.
6. She auctioned for more than 42 shows in London in 1997. She was rejected in many modeling jobs at the start with the reason that “her nose was too big.”
7. Her first Vogue cover was out in the year 1998, after which she became the most in-demand cover girl with 10 covers in less than four years.
8. She started dating the A-list American Actor – Leonardo DiCaprio and was in relationship with him till 2004. The duo was even listed in the People’s annual Most Beautiful Couples List.
9. She is a sixth-generation Brazilian of German descent, as both her parents, though lived in Brazil, are of German descent. She was raised in Horizontina, a southern region in Brazil with a large population of German ancestry.
10. She wore the most expensive Victoria’s Secret Fantasy bra of all time, the “Red Hot Fantasy Bra”, worth $15 million in the year 2000, which was listed in Guinness World Records as the most expensive lingerie ever created.
11. In 1999, Vogue noted Gisele as “The Return of the Sexy Model.” From the following year, she signed the contract to be one of the Victoria’s Secret Angels, till the year 2007.
12. In the year 1993, Gisele along with her sisters – Patricia and Gabriela, joined a modeling course on her mother’s insistence. Before that, she was only interested in becoming a professional volleyball player and had even considered becoming a member for Brazilian team, Sogipa. She used to call herself “Ana Mozur” (a great Brazilian volleyball player).
13. She was considered for the role of Alex Munday in the movie Charlie’s Angels (2000), but she turned down the offer.
14. Gisele was in every Dolce & Gabbana fashion campaign from the year 1998 to 2003, a total of 11 consecutive campaigns. Again from 2006 to 2009, she was the face of the brand’s fragrance, in a campaign titled “Dolce & Gabbana The One.”
15. Her first New York City break was at the Fashion Week in the year 1996. She was the first in a wave of Brazilian models to find international success.
16. She is the fourth supermodel in the world to grace the cover of Rolling Stone.
17. Her modeling in the Alexander McQueen’s spring 1998 “rain” ready-to-wear show, was the major turning point in her career.
18. Gisele has 5 sisters – Raquel, Graziela, Gabriela, Rafaela, and her fraternal twin Patrícia, her junior by five minutes. Her sisters – Patricia is her manager in Brazil, Rafaela is her social networking manager, Gabriela is her lawyer and Graziela is her accounts manager. Raquel is a federal judge in Brazil.
19. She has been on over 7000 magazine covers throughout the world — a total that is only second to Princess Diana’s.
20. She launched Ipanema Gisele Bündchen in association with the official Ipanema brand of flip-flops, in the year 2001. In the next three years, the brand got her more than $30 million, a portion of which were contributed to green causes. Every year, she chooses a different charity to donate the proceeds of sales from the brand.
21. She was designated as Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Environment Program.
22. She was listed as the fourth-most-powerful person in the fashion world, by the New York Daily News. She was also named as the 16th richest woman in the entertainment industry.
23. She opened “The Luz Organization” that advocates the empowerment of young girls, in the year 2007. She auctioned her own diamond collection, an autographed iPod loaded with a personal playlist, and much more for various charities.
24. She won nominations for two awards – Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Breakout Performance – Female and Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Bad Guy.
25. Since 2004, Gisele has been the highest paid model in the world.
26. Gisele married her partner Tom Brady on February 26, 2009 in a small Catholic ceremony at St. Monica Catholic Church in Santa Monica, California. Brady revealed in an interview that the couple was first set up on a blind date. The duo remarried in a larger ceremony in Costa Rica on April 5, 2009 with her stepson John. Gisele and Brady have 2 kids – son Benjamin Rein Bundchen Brady born on December 9, 2009 and daughter Vivian Lake Bundchen Brady born on December 5, 2012.
27. Gisele has donated $150,000 to Brazil’s Zero Hunger program. She designed a limited necklace edition for Harper’s Bazaar, to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
28. She was ranked 60th on the list of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women, by Forbes in August 2011, and ranked third on the 20 Youngest Power Women of 2011 list.
29. She donated $1.5 million to the Red Cross for the relief effort in Haiti in the 2010 and wrote a check of $1 million, the next year, for Tohoku earthquake and tsunami fund.
30. In 2012, she was ranked 15th by Forbes in the list of Most Generous Celebrities. She is also one of 22 designers to design a collection for the charity Born Free Africa mission – with the aim to end mother-to-child HIV transmission at birth.
In 2010, Gisele introduced a skin care product line – Sejaa Pure Skincare. She also owns a separate lingerie line – Gisele Bundchen Brazilian Intimates.
The same year, Gisele and Brady were named the World’s Highest Paid Celebrity couple, beating Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as well as Beyoncé and Jay-Z.
She received the Greenest Celebrity award, and was named as the year’s Global Environmental Citizen by Harvard. Her project – Forests of the future, set up with SOS Mata Atlantic, has planted more than 1 million trees in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest in her name. She was ranked No. 4, behind Pelé, Paulo Coelho and Neymar on Forbes Brazil’s list of the 100 most influential Brazilian celebrities. In 2012 she placed first on the Forbes top-earning models list. She was hired as the spokesmodel for C&A Brazil, after which the sales increased by 30 percent.
The same year, the website Vogue.it stated “the Brazilian model is the King Midas of fashion. Everything she touches turns to gold and companies that have invested in her have reaped the rewards.”
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