'I'M STILL A SEXUAL PERSON'

Marie Helvin on breast cancer surgery, coming off HRT and why she spends her money on vitamins rather than clothes

- INTERVIEW: TRACY SCHAVERIEN

As one of the world's original supermodels, Marie Helvin graced glossy magazine covers and catwalks from Paris and Milan to New York, attending star-studded parties and dating a host of desirable men.

Today, at 73, her life is significantly quieter, with fashion shows and champagne soirees replaced by nights at home with her elderly cat, Keiki, but she is every bit as beautiful and glamorous as she was in her modelling heyday in the Seventies and Eighties.

When HELLO! meets her for this exclusive interview and photoshoot, she could easily pass for a woman half her age. With her high cheekbones, smooth, dewy complexion and impossibly long legs, it's little surprise that she was confident enough to model sexy lingerie for a campaign with Bluebella only last year. Yet her look is almost entirely natural.

"I do Botox twice a year, but I don't do anything else,” she says. "It's partly genetic, but I also put in the work."

Indeed, she does. Having been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2022 shortly after her 70th birthday, Marie is now focused on remaining as fit and healthy as she can be. She hasn't eaten meat in more than 50 years and went teetotal when she was 60, and her lifestyle is filled with regular workouts and a dizzying array of supplements, vitamins and infusions.

As we chat at her riverside apartment building in southwest London, she is warm, open and refreshingly frank. She describes the physical and emotional toll that her mastectomy and subsequent cancer treatment have taken on her, and opens up about her post-surgery love life - and how she almost became sister-in-law to the Queen.