Known as “The Body”, Elle is Australia’s first supermodel. She carved a career out of her natural beauty and Amazonian physique – in particular her breasts – from the Tab soft drink commercial that launched her career in 1982 to swimsuit calendars and magazine covers, and a successful multimillion-dollar line of bras. But she couldn’t have predicted the very serious diagnosis that was to come.
Elle is opening up and revealing her cancer journey for the first time both to The Weekly and in her new eponymously titled book. Elle is not an autobiography, rather a series of wisdoms she has learnt through chapters of her most remarkable 60 years. There’s New York City, about having the courage to jump on a plane to America as a teenager and try to break into the fashion world. Billy in the Bar details her time with singer Billy Joel; Supermodel recalls becoming The Body and Australia’s most famous fashion icon. The Biz talks about harnessing her innate business sense and creating her own brand; Hollywood describes becoming an “accidental actress” and guest starring in Friends, Batman & Robin, and the Australian film Sirens. Recovery details going to rehab for alcohol addiction and being sober for 21 years.
And then there’s Cancer. Subtitled “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff”, this chapter is the most stark, not just for its revelation of her diagnosis – which she’s kept secret for the past seven years – but for its raw honesty about how she underwent treatment.
Elle, who turned 60 earlier this year, is known for not sticking to convention, and has very much lived life on her terms. She describes it as “a life of authenticity”. So when it came to cancer, she stuck with her beliefs. And like most things Elle does, she didn’t choose an ordinary path for her cancer treatment. Eschewing traditional medicine, she instead chose a holistic approach.
On that fateful Friday 13th, she was called by her doctor and informed that the diagnosis of the lumpectomy she’d had was HER2 positive oestrogen receptive intraductal carcinoma. Her doctor suggested a mastectomy with radiation, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, plus reconstruction of her breast.
Elle was, understandably, thrown into fear and anxiety about the diagnosis of this life-threatening disease that affects one in seven Australian women.
“It was a shock, it was unexpected, it was confusing, it was daunting in so many ways,” she tells The Weekly. “And it really gave me an opportunity to dig deep in my inner sense to find a solution that worked for me…I realised I was going to need my own truth, my belief system to support me through it. And that’s what I did. So, it was a wonderful exercise in being true to myself, trusting myself and trusting the nature of my body and the course of action that I had chosen.”
Choosing her own path to treatment sent Elle, who in recent decades has embraced a holistic approach to health and wellness, into a tailspin. She deliberated for several weeks, seeking advice from 32 doctors and experts. In the end she went to a beach in Miami, prayed and meditated, and made one of the biggest decisions of her life: Not to undergo chemotherapy. Instead, Elle opted for “an intuitive, heart-led, holistic approach” to treating her cancer under the guidance of her primary doctor who specialises in integrative medicine, which uses a combination of therapies and lifestyle changes to treat and heal the whole person.
“I want to help and encourage others to follow their heart and give things a go.”
Elle Macpherson
Taking a non-pharmaceutical path is not for everyone. She admits in her book: “I came to the understanding that there was no sure thing and absolutely no guarantees. There was no ‘right’ way, just the right way for me.
“I chose an holistic approach. Saying no to standard medical solutions was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. But saying no to my own inner sense would have been even harder,” she writes.
“Sometimes an authentic choice from the heart makes no sense to others … but it doesn’t have to. People thought I was crazy but I knew I had to make a choice that truly resonated with me. To me, that meant addressing emotional as well as physical factors associated with breast cancer. It was time for deep, inner reflection. And that took courage.”
Her decision understandably received mixed reactions from her family – including sons Flynn and Cy (then aged 19 and 14 respectively) – and their father, her former partner Arki Busson. She writes: “Cy simply thought that chemo kills you. And so he never wanted me to do it because he thought that was a kiss of death. Flynn, being more conventional, wasn’t comfortable with my choice at all. He is my son, though, and would support me through anything and love me through my choices, even if he didn’t agree with them. My children were extremely supportive in their different ways but I knew they felt very scared.
“Arki was really supportive … He didn’t agree with what I was doing … Yet he wrote to me to tell me how proud he was of the courage I was showing. Of course he was scared because I’d decided not to take a conventional pharmaceutical route. He considered that extreme. I, on the other hand, felt the chemo and surgery route was extreme.”
Elle was under the care of several specialists, including her primary doctor, a doctor of naturopathy, holistic dentist, osteopath, chiropractor and two therapists. For her treatment, Elle took herself to Phoenix, Arizona, rented a house and for eight months she stayed there alone under her doctor’s care, “focusing and devoting every single minute to healing myself”.
So what is her health status now?
“In traditional terms, they’d say I’m in clinical remission, but I would say I’m in utter wellness. And I am!” she says. “Truly, from every perspective, every blood test, every scan, every imaging test … but also emotionally, spiritually and mentally – not only physically. It’s not only what your blood tests say, it’s how and why you are living your life on all levels.”
Her holistic approach reminded me of Olivia Newton-John, who complimented her clinical treatment for cancer with holistic practices. Did Elle ever seek advice from Olivia?
“Yes, we spoke a few times when I was diagnosed and also through both of our healing journeys,” she says. “We did things differently, but we did share experiences with each other and how we feel and how we approach things.”
“I came to the understanding that there was no sure thing and absolutely no guarantees. There was no ‘right’ way, just the right way for me.”
Elle Macpherson
Breast cancer, Elle says, became the catalyst for enormous growth in “self-awareness, self-love and self-knowing”. And sharing her experiences is something she has been passionate about for many years, which is why she wrote her book. She wants to share her life stories with others as words of wisdom, forms of inspiration and to encourage greater wellness in the world.
“It’s not about giving advice to others,” she says. “I’m simply sharing what I discovered through my own real experiences. I want to help and encourage others to follow their heart and give things a go … follow their heart in whatever they’re choosing to do, not just when in crisis but for decisions, big or small.
“Learn to slow down and get very quiet and very still and feel what truly resonates with you without the outer distractions of everybody else’s opinions. It’s about using your heart as a compass in life.”
“Use your heart as a compass” is something Elle repeats several times during our conversation, as well as “living a life of purpose” and “being authentic”. Her courage in her convictions, dedication to living her life of wellness, and the success she has enjoyed in doing so, is admirable.
Elle has an intoxicating presence and can hold a room in the palm of her hand. Earlier this year, at a lunch to celebrate 10 years of her company, WelleCo, and her 60th birthday, she was quintessential Elle: the tall, glamorous supermodel regaling the attendees with the story of how she created WelleCo.
In 2014 she found a lump in her breast and while that one, thankfully, turned out to be a benign cyst, it fortuitously led her to meet Dr Simoné Laubscher, a naturopath, nutritionist and wellness expert renowned for her work in hormone rebalancing, cancer, diabetes and wellbeing. Elle had been feeling depleted and was entering menopause, and Dr Laubscher had prescribed a daily cocktail of vitamins. Elle, however, just wanted to take one, so the pair created a one-and-done complete vitamin and mineral complex – WelleCo The Super Elixr and super greens powder – ingestible wellness products that support enhancing energy levels, improving gut health and promoting clear skin.
As she recounted this story on stage, with bouncy hair and a magnetic smile that lit up the room, Elle charmed the audience in an instant. When you hear her talk about how embracing a life of wellness and daily doses of this product changed her life, you feel like you want in too. When she greets you, she cups your hands in hers and looks you in the eye with absolute authenticity, dazzling with that Elle superpower.
An astute businesswoman, Elle learnt early how to capitalise on the strength of her personal brand. As such she was one of the first models to embrace her identity and build an eponymous business empire, described by CEO Magazine as “so influential that she’s only known by one name”. All her companies and brands are plays on her name: WelleCo, Elle Macpherson Intimates, Elle Macpherson Inc.; even her book is simply titled Elle. She cites trusting her gut instinct and being true to herself as secrets to her successes.
“It’s an authentic journey; this is
my real-life experience,” she says
of how she approaches her business ventures. “So when you see me sharing about WelleCo, it’s from my actual experience in everyday life.”
Several months later, as she
chats to me by phone from London about her book, Elle’s
in the middle of juggling real estate viewings while recording the audio version of her book.
It’s a collaboration with her partner, American musician Doyle Bramhall II.
“Listening to your inner sense is extremely important, it’s vital. I listened and trusted it and I followed it … I think that’s the wisdom I want to share. It’s how important getting to know yourself is and listening to your inner urge for everything in life … That has been the thread through my whole life. Trusting and listening to the inner sense.”
Elle Macpherson
Over the phone, Elle’s just as charming and easy to talk to, and like her book, is surprisingly open. Over 90 minutes she seamlessly navigates topics from cancer to sobriety to wellness to how to motivate a team and what makes the ideal magazine cover.
She can talk personal health crises as easily as espousing business advice like a fabulous girlfriend. The only time I’m reminded that she is in fact Elle Macpherson is when she refers to “Naomi” sharing stories about motherhood. Of course, that’s fellow supermodel Naomi Campbell, one of her partners in the ill-fated Fashion Cafe franchise. It was one of Elle’s few business failures and, in typical philosophical style, she looks back on it as a valuable life lesson. She sees all circumstances as valuable and explains why in her book.
In fact, everything she writes about feels like a lesson that leads to the next chapter. “Everything happens for a reason – a purposeful, supportive reason, whether you can see it at the time or not,” she says.
Her life has been full of glamour and celebrity. The book is peppered with stories like, at a party in the 1990s, meeting Princess Diana (who was in jeans and a T-shirt and talking about the music of the day).
But she is most passionate about her family and cites motherhood as her “biggest joy in life”. This is Elle’s tenth cover for The Weekly, and she introduced both sons to the world in this magazine. Her sons are her pride and joy.
“We are wise guides for our children, we don’t own them, they have their own life’s journey … Children learn not by what we say but what they see we do,” she says, paraphrasing Lebanese/American philosopher Kahlil Gibran.
“I think I demonstrated authenticity in my choices and the results were very positive. I see them [her sons] being courageous in their life’s choices too and really expressing their uniqueness in this world and coming to terms with that and making that journey from their head to their heart.”
Another turning point in Elle’s life was getting sober 21 years ago after developing a problem with alcohol. She details her recovery experience and time spent in a rehab in Arizona in her book for the first time. It was 2003 when she attended her first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, a 12-step program Elle continues to be part of today.
“Sobriety was a huge turning point in my life, and it was empowering because it showed me that all the events in my life were like a string of valuable experiences that could give meaning to my life,” she says.
“So by getting sober, I was able to see that instead of numbing it, instead of blocking myself from that pain, it actually became so uplifting for me. Alcoholics Anonymous is a roadmap for life. It’s such a powerful tool. And even a really spiritual one.”
“Sobriety was a huge turning point in my life, and it was empowering because it showed me that all the events in my life were like a string of valuable experiences that could give meaning to my life.”
Elle Macpherson
It was to Arizona that, 14 years later, Elle would return to rehabilitate herself, this time in a bid to rid her body of cancer, and one of her chapters is aptly titled “Out of the Ashes Rises the Phoenix”.
While her time in Arizona healed her, Australia has Elle’s heart. She grew up in a mid-century home – the “prettiest house on the street” – in Caringbah in Sydney’s south, where her father was the president of the Cronulla Sharks rugby league football club, before moving to the upper North Shore.
“Australia has influenced my perspective on beauty,” she writes. “I grew up believing that beauty’s in the sunset; the waves on Bondi Beach; the sunshine and the bush. It was the smell of the eucalyptus trees and the breeze on a balmy afternoon.”
Her Australianness, or her “Aussie” as Elle calls it, is what has kept her together and formed her strength to get through all of her experiences, both good and bad.
“My Aussie is my everything, it’s that Aussie ‘give it a go’, it’s a continuing thread through all my life,” she says. “That very Aussie courage. And courage is a quality of the heart, again it’s like going to your heart – just give it a go, check it out! That’s been the story of my life for everything … so being Aussie has been everything to me.”
She also has a great sense of humour. While Elle seriously acknowledges that breast cancer “became the catalyst for enormous growth in self-awareness, self-love and self-knowing”, she also jokes in Elle that she almost called the book “How My Tits Saved My Ass” – “but that would trivialise the significance of my life’s extraordinary experiences”. I can’t help observe that her breasts have been a theme throughout her life: First being one of her most famous modelling assets, then with her line of bras, then leading to the creation of WelleCo.
“When I was writing, I was laughing because I thought it’s been such a journey of breasts!” she laughs. “My relationship with my body is such now that I can finally appreciate and respect the intelligence of the human body, it’s so magnificent. And not just my body because of the physical aspects, but everybody’s body … my journey has definitely been a journey of breasts!”
Finding light in times of darkness is also one of Elle’s greatest assets. “What I’ve come to learn is that joy and fear seldom coexist. It’s not joy through fear – it’s how do you find joy instead of fear? And how you do that is focus on all the little or big things that you’re actually grateful for, and know that everything has a powerful purpose in life. That’s where you find joy – in purpose and gratitude.”
As we wrap up our conversation, Elle talks giddily of finding love with Doyle and how excited she is that they are working on her audiobook – their first project together. She circles back to one overriding theme she’s discovered while writing Elle: that her journey has ultimately been a lesson in love.
“We all need to learn to give and receive unconditional love,” she says. “The book is really about love. First of self, and then of others, and then of life itself.”
Elle by Elle Macpherson is available through Penguin from September 3. Visit penguin.com.au/books/elle for more.
Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among women in Australia. Approximately 57 Australians are diagnosed each and every day, and one in seven women are diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. Early detection gives the best possible chance of survival. For more information on detection and treatment options, go to nbcf.org.au
One in Seven
