This is an old article about her, but I really liked it and I don't think it was posted before.
[SIZE=-1]Sophie Dahl
[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]The Lies and the Legend[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]
The Goddess[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Is this Toby Young?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Yes."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Sorry to disturb you. I'm calling from the
Daily ____. I'm writing a feature on Sophie Dahl's disturbing weight loss. D'you have five minutes?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]
Oh Jesus H Christ. Not again!?![/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]When I asked Sophie Dahl if she wanted to rent the spare room in my New York apartment five years ago I didn't realise that, for the rest of my life, I'd be called approximately once a day by some wretched tabloid hack wanting the inside dope on my former flatmate. In short, I didn't realise that this sweet, fresh-faced girl would become one of the most famous women in the world.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The "story" this time--and it isn't really a story, it never is--was that Sophie had looked "worryingly thin" (
The Sun) when she'd presented children's author Mark Haddon with the best book prize at the South Bank Show Awards. Afterwards, Sophie had complained of feeling faint and asked to sit down, prompting the finest brains in Fleet Street to order up 1,000 words on how the curvy supermodel had become a super-thin waif. Was she suffering from an eating disorder?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]If I'd had a little more patience, I could have explained to the reporter for the
Daily ____ that Sophie hasn't been "curvy"--a Fleet Street euphemism for fat--since she moved to New York in 1999. Indeed, I might have gone on to ask her why she was bothering to call anyone. Why didn't she just dig up the last
Daily ____ article about Sophie's "disturbing weight loss" and simply copy that? Or the one before that? Or the one before that? The
Daily ____ has run a piece on Sophie's "disturbing weight loss" every six months or so ever since she shed her puppy fat.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Let's get one thing straight: Sophie Dahl does not have an eating disorder. How do I know this? Because two days before she presented the South Bank Show Award I watched her demolish the breadbasket at Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's before ploughing through a hearty, two-course lunch. Far from being anorexic, she eats like a horse. I'm fairly sure she isn't bulimic, either. True, she did disappear at the end of the meal, claiming she had to go and get her eyebrows done, but--shock, horror--I don't think she skulked off to the ladies and stuck her fingers down her throat. No, I think she actually went and got her eyebrows done. At least, they looked like they'd been done when she re-appeared, 45 minutes later, and settled down to a plate of biscuits in the tea room. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Here's a scoop: The reason Sophie Dahl manages to stay in shape, in spite of her healthy appetite, is because she works out. With a trainer. Every day. It's as simple as that. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Almost everything you read about Sophie in the tabloid press is a myth. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Mick Jagger? [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Not any more. She's been living with the same man, Dan Baker, for over a year.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]A predilection for older men? [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Er, no. At 25, Dan is a year younger than her. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]An inexhaustible party girl? [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]When she was a teenager, maybe. These days she reckons she goes out--as in out out, to a fashion party or a movie premier--once every six weeks. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]One of the highest-paid women in Britain? According to a recent article in the
Mail on Sunday listing Britain's 100 highest-paid women, Sophie earned £1.4 million in 2003. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]When I ask her about this, she bursts out laughing. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Okay, okay, but she's still one of the highest-paid models in the world isn't she?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Well, she's certainly one of the world's highest-paid models when she can be persuaded to step in front of a camera, but these days she spends most of her time working on her book. She has a contract with Bloomsbury, the publishers of her first book, to write a novel. It's due at the end of the summer. And unlike
The Man With The Dancing Eyes, this is going to be a proper, grown up book.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The list goes on. And on. And on.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]All of this begs the question: Why do people make up all this crap about her? What is it about this extremely down-to-earth, good-natured 26-year-old that sends Fleet Street's rumour-mongers into overdrive? [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She certainly doesn't court publicity. One of the reasons the reporter for the
Daily ____ was calling me was because she'd already tried--and failed--to talk to Sophie. That's the reason they all call me. Because Sophie never talks to any of them. Ever. Jordan, she aint.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]True, she did once step out with a Rolling Stone, but that's hardly an exclusive club. You could fill The Hippodrome on a Saturday night with Bill Wyman's conquests alone. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She isn't a movie star.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She isn't a pop star.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She isn't even a soap star.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She's never even appeared on a reality show, for Christ's sake.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Why in God's name is Sophie Dahl so famous?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The answer, and you probably know this or you wouldn't have read this far, is that she possesses the X-factor. Style. Glamour. Sex appeal. Call it what you want. She's got it. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]I can't tell you the number of occasions I've stepped into a party with Sophie on my arm and...it's almost as if someone had stood five feet in front of us and fired a Kalashnikov. What was that? Who's that? Heads whip round in unison. Everyone shuts up. The music practically stops.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Then, after a pregnant pause, people just pounce. Suddenly, we're at the centre of the hurricane. Sophie is like this fabulous, mouth-watering wedding cake--everyone wants a piece of her. I literally have to fight them off as I rush, head down, gripping Sophie as tightly as I can, towards the VIP section. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]It's completely insane.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]And remember. She's not a movie star. She's not a pop star. She's not even a soap star.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She just looks like...somebody. And because she looks like somebody, she is somebody. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]I didn't realise it when she appeared on my doorstep in New York in 1999, but this apparently normal girl would blossom into an icon. Women like this come along once in a generation. In 50 years time, when my granddaughter is putting up pictures of Sophie on her wall, alongside Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot and Madonna, I'll be able to tell her that I once lived with that woman. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]And of course, she won't believe me.[/SIZE]