10 hot stories, including why ‘trapped’ Cara can’t move on, and your 2018 wishlist
1 WHY ‘ TRAPPED’ CARA CAN’T MOVE ON
EARLIER THIS YEAR, Cara Delevingne announced, ‘I didn’t like myself as a model. I didn’t like what I stood for. I didn’t like what it was turning me into.’ She had previously said that the fashion industry made her feel ‘sick’ and ‘hollow’, and that, ‘I want to act. I want to do something that doesn’t make my skin erupt’.
And yet, since publicly discussing her plans to swap the catwalk for Hollywood, there have been campaigns with YSL Beauty, watch brand TAG Heuer, Rimmel, Puma, Beats by Dre headphones and, just last month, a Christmas Burberry campaign.
The reason? According to insiders, the 25-year-old star ‘can’t afford to quit’ modelling to pursue acting alone. Documents seen by Grazia reveal she made £10m this year – £27,000 a day. But according to one well-placed source, less than a third of that came from her film roles, meaning she’d struggle to maintain her lavish lifestyle on acting alone.
Indeed, Cara is yet to star in a film that has been a financial and critical success. Her most recent, Tulip Fever, performed disastrously at the US box office ( it wasn’t even released in the UK). Meanwhile, despite enormous hype, Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets – the Luc Besson film that also starred Rihanna – received mixed reviews and failed to break even financially, eliminating previous talk of a sequel. Last year, Kids In Love failed to get wide distribution and went straight to video-on-demand and, earlier this year, Suicide Squad might have made money, but received catastrophic reviews. Cara later admitted, ‘ The critics have been absolutely horrific… really, really horrible.’
‘Cara has been very open about her desire to transition from modelling to acting, but her Hollywood career seems to have stalled,’ said the source. ‘ When she started acting there was huge buzz about her, but so far she’s failed to prove she’s a bankable star. She hasn’t had that big role yet to push her into the next league and there’s a feeling that time is running out for her in Hollywood. Cara finds having to rely on modelling to finance her lifestyle demoralising – it’s not a passion for her.’
Cara has herself previously hinted that her acting career is yet to prove financially viable on its own. ‘People say to me, “The money’s probably not enough, it’s not the amount you usually get paid,”’ she told The Guardian. ‘And I sit there going, “No, that’s not the point. I would pay to do this film because I care about it so much.”’
Meanwhile, following her split from St Vincent (real name Annie Clark) in September 2016, there have been rumours that the pair are ‘rekindling’ their romance after Cara was spotted attending the singer’s concert in Dublin in October. They are also said to have met up in London the month before.
Speaking to Vogue in September, Annie said, ‘I’ll always love her.’ Just a month before their split, Cara told an interviewer, ‘Before, I didn’t know what love was – real love. Now I know the meaning of life is love.’
‘ The split was not Cara’s decision and she hasn’t ever properly gotten over Annie – she’s absolutely the love of her life,’ said a second source. ‘ They’re taking things slowly, enjoying spending time together. Nobody would be surprised if they did end up making things official again – but while those close to Cara felt that Annie was a good influence on her during their relationship, they don’t want to see her heartbroken again. As we enter a new year, there are concerns that, professionally and personally, Cara is standing still.’