TV review
Model behaviour
by Diana Wichtel
Rachel Hunter: reluctant celebrity or just a tabloid headline-seeker?
Any time you hear words like “supermodel” and “around $20 million” used in a British documentary about a girl from Glenfield, it should count as a happy outcome, if not an outright miracle.
Yet, TV2’s British documentary Rachel Hunter Laid Bare made for oddly dispiriting viewing. “I was basically the reluctant girl who became a sensation down there [New Zealand] and became a sensation up in the States and became one of the biggest editorial models in Elle magazine and Harper’s Bazaar and all that. And then there were the contracts …” banged on Hunter modestly.
Sensational. Though it’s hard to remember anything remotely reluctant about Rachel. But then Laid Bare was an occasionally interesting exercise in the slippage between reality and the version of it that is played out on Planet Celebrity. Will Storr from Loaded magazine, that bible of the pre-Tamihere New Lad, came on to talk about how Hunter trades on her sexuality. Cue pictures of a photo shoot with Hunter writhing on the shag pile, naked but for a strategically – and rather alarmingly for primetime – positioned dog.
Cut to Hunter: “I don’t see myself as something that sexual at all”; “… very low self-esteem with that”; “Don’t even want to go there”, etc. Cue pictures of Hunter cavorting in knickers for the camera.
As for her private life, “As far as my personal life and my relationships with people – and we all know who those people are – it’s one thing I will never ever go into ever again in my life.”
Well, I’m not sure I know who all of them are. It’s so hard to keep up. But one of them was, of course, Robbie Williams. He’s apparently writing an autobiography. “The book doesn’t bother me at all whatsoever,” declared Hunter emphatically, if tautologically, before going on to sound very bothered indeed. “To actually explain yourself and explain your relationships,” she huffed. “Why should you have to? That is the most pathetic thing.”
Such is her love of personal privacy that, at one point, the reluctant celebrity and sexual shrinking violet hopped into a too-small bathtub, leaving the door open and the documentary cameras gratefully recording her impressive assets.
Then there was the alleged drinking problem. “I never had a drinking problem,” stated Hunter firmly, going on to make repeated references to her non-drinking: “I became sober a year ago. That’s the biggest change in my life”; “I’ve been sober for 15 months.”
Still, what fun is consistency in a celebrity? Speculation is what the tabloids feed on, so if it was all a bit bewildering, it’s probably meant to be. “She plays a very manipulative game with the press,” said the cynical Storr, comparing her to Princess Diana.
“She uses the media to her advantage,” confirmed some woman from the Sun. “If she wasn’t appearing in the newspapers all the time, she wouldn’t be booked as a model. It’s quite simple.”
Though not that simple, as it turns out. A fashion designer came on to warn that it’s not a good idea to rely just on looks to get you through life. “A successful, intelligent person would have something up her sleeve and hopefully Rachel has.” For the two weeks that the doco crew followed her around, all she seemed to have up her sleeve was a perfectly toned arm that she displayed as often as possible, along with as much of the rest of her as she could get away with.
Of course, she’s also got the column centimetres generated by her ongoing entanglement with the Tartan Terror. “People fixate on how young I got married,” sighed Rachel, before coming up with the definitive statement on the subject: “You know what? So what?”
People, she decreed, should drop it. If they don’t, it may be because Hunter never really does, either. She’s either a better actress than her work to date suggests or she has regrets. Leaving Rod was the “right decision at that time”, she said, adding wistfully, “I had a great marriage.”
Of course she still loves him, father of her children, etc. But the doco-makers must have been delighted when her Monaco trip to present at some sports awards turned into the tabloid equivalent of nude jelly wrestling. Rod and his latest leggy blonde, Penny, were presenting, too. Penny made a pre-emptive grab for the front pages by giving Rod an “apparently unexpected” lap dance. Then she and Rod thoroughly upstaged Hunter by telling the apparently fascinated audience that they watched the Soccer World Cup naked. Other than tearing her dress off and setting fire to it on the spot, what could Rachel possibly do to top that?
Though it was hard to feel too much sympathy for her. She chose to be there at the same time, no doubt with headlines in mind. It’s just that they weren’t quite the headlines she was after.
That cynical Loaded bloke had a few words of advice for her about riding the tabloid tiger. “She’s feeding them things. I’d suggest she has to be very careful with that, because every single time someone tries to play this game, as soon as the tabloids get bored of things being fed by the celebrity, they just turn on them.”
Page 1 2 
