female The ‘Bowie’ saved who Cara
... and took her from drug scene to domestic bliss (via a purple loo outfit)
IT ALL seemed to be going wrong for Cara Delevingne. As a teenager thrust into the spotlight as the latest supermodel, she was frequently seen stumbling out of nightclubs in the small hours.
Then there was the infamous incident when a suspicious bag of white powder dropped out of her handbag in the full glare of the paparazzi.
But now, aged 23, Cara is riding high. She has a new film out this summer – the £120 million blockbuster Suicide Squad with Ben Affleck and Will Smith – which critics predict will turn her into a Hollywood star.
And there is her £6million-a-year modelling career, which has gone from strength to strength with new campaigns as the face of Chanel sunglasses and Lancome cosmetics, making her the second-highest earning model in the world after Gisele Bundchen.
Now, London-born Cara has moved to Los Angeles and embraced a healthier lifestyle, extolling – to the astonishment of many – the virtues of green juice and the gym.
The reason for this transformation? A 32-year-old ethereal beauty called St Vincent, a wacky American performance artist and singer who recently appeared on stage dressed as a purple lavatory.
She and Cara have been inseparable since they met nearly two years ago, with rumours of a proposal and an engagement earlier this year.
St Vincent, whose real name is the rather more prosaic Annie Clark, may seem an unlikely ‘saviour’ but The Mail on Sunday can reveal that she and Cara bonded over childhood traumas that left them both with deep emotional scars.
In Cara’s case it was her mother’s debilitating heroin habit, which left her daughter struggling with crippling depression and insecurity. St Vincent endured the heartbreak of seeing her father imprisoned for his part in a £35million fraud.
‘Both of them have overcome huge obstacles to get where they are today,’ a friend said last night. ‘Part of the reason their relationship is so solid is that they are honest and open with each other about their issues.’
In a rare comment about their relationship, Cara expressed shock that she has found lasting love, telling Vogue magazine: ‘I think that being in love with my girlfriend is a big part of why I’m feeling so happy with who I am these days. And for those words to come out of my mouth iss actually a miracle. It t took me a long time to o accept the idea, until I first fell in love with a girl at 20 and recog- gnised I had to accept it.’ ’
With five solo albums, s, plus Grammy and Britrit awards, there is no doubting her talent, even if, on the surface, it appears that Oklahomaborn St Vincent and aristocratic Cara have little in common.
Cara was born to Pandora, one of the Duchess of York’s closest friends, and property developer Charles Delevingne, a former debs’ delight. Home was a £12million mansion in Belgravia, West London, and Cara was educated at the top independent Francis Holland School for girls and then at the progressive boarding school Bedales in Hampshire, where fees are £33,000 a year.
St Vincent, on the other hand, was born into a working class family in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the youngest of three daughters of Sharon, a social worker, and Richard Clark.
However, they have much in common when it comes to surviving family heartache. Cara has been open about how her mother’s drug addiction and frequent visits to rehab clinics affected her early life and that of her sisters Poppy and Chloe.
Cara, who suffers from the co-ordi-- nation disorder dyspraxia, said: ‘I was hit with a massive wave of depression and anxiety and selfhatred where the feelings were so painful I would slam my head against a tree to try and knock myself out.
‘I got to the point where I went a bit mad. I was completely suicidal. I didn’t want to live any more.’
ST VINCENT’S parents divorced when she was four, and her father would later be convicted of a massive financial fraud for which he remains in jail. The Mail on Sunday has seen court records that reveal Clark was jailed for 12 years and seven months after being found guilty in 2010 on charges including conspiracy, wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering in a stock manipulation scheme in which he and his co-conspirators cheated 17,000 investors out of about £35 million. He was also charged with failing to pay maintenance, at one point owing more than £300,000 in child support for St Vincent and her older sisters Amy and Mary.
He is behind bars at the Federal Correctional Institution in Seagoville, Texas. ‘Annie keeps in touch with him, she’s visited him, of course,’ said her uncle Tuck Andress, a jazz musician. ‘She’s worked through things. She’s had all kinds of dark nights of the soul.’
He added: ‘Cara and Annie are very happy. Cara has been embraced as part of our family. They are a great couple. Annie is a wonderful girl and very down to earth. She’s an artist but she’s never chased fame or celebrity.’
So who is St Vincent and what is it about her that Cara finds so captivating? Tuck’s wife Patti said: ‘Annie was very shy. The first time she played for us we sat in the living room and she sat in the hallway. It was like, “Don’t look at me.” ’
At school, she joined a band called Jack In The Pulpit: ‘From our first performance, it was clear Annie Clark was destined for greatness,’ band member Arielle Street recalled. ‘Her presence filled a room like headlights in a tunnel.’
Former teacher Fritz Kuehn added: ‘Annie always had a guitar in hand. She was painfully shy, this gawky kid, but when she got on stage she shone. It was clear she has something special.’
At 18, she joined her uncle and aunt on the road to support their jazz act Tuck and Patti. ‘We had a big tour of Europe so she came along and worked as our tour manager,’ Patti explained. ‘It was a rite of passage for her. We played the Montreux Jazz Festival and many years later she called us after she’d played there and she was walking round the lake. She was flooded with memories and said thank you for everything we taught her.’
Tuck added: ‘Her core values have never changed. She’s a down-to-earth person. She’s a dreamer but she’s practical and polite. What you see is what you get.’
St Vincent chose her stage name after St Vincent’s Hospital in New York, where Welsh poet Dylan Thomas died in 1953. ‘ She asked my advice about the name change and I cautioned against it,’ her uncle said. ‘I’m glad she didn’t heed my advice.’ She has been compared to Prince and called a ‘female David Bowie’ for her bizarre outfits and experimental style. Last month, she performed a song with her head poking out of a lavatory costume at a New York club. No one knows exactly how Cara and St Vincent met but they are believed to have started dating towards the end of 2014. They went public at the Brit Awards in 2015 and have since been virtually inseparable. St Vincent has spoken only once of her lover and the world of celebrity she finds herself in, saying: ‘I have a rich life that has nothing to do with the flimflam. ‘I know there’s a through-thelooking-glass version of myself and I don’t feel particularly attached to that version, especially as it pertains to the public eye. It’s removed from my actual life.’ The pair share a dog, Leo, a husky mix, and live in a £1.1 million home in the hills above Sunset Strip in LA, where St Vincent has a recording studio. Both women have said they would like to become mothers one day, amid rumours St Vincent proposed to Cara during a recent trip to Paris.
For St Vincent’s family, it is a great love match. ‘We spent a couple of days in LA a couple of months ago,’ said Patti. ‘We hung out. Cara is a dear. They seem to be really happy. They are wonderful together.
‘Cara instantly seems like a member of our family.’