Rachel Hunter

Rachel Hunter (born 8 September 1969) is a New Zealand supermodel, actress and the host of Imagination Television's Rachel's Tour of Beauty. She has appeared on several magazine covers, including Italian Vogue, Elle, and Harper's Bazaar. She was on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in 1994 and again in 2006 .

Hunter was born in Glenfield, a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand. Her parents divorced when she was still a child. Wanting to be a ballet dancer, she was diagnosed with a rare blood disease as a teenager, which curtailed her dancing ambitions.

Hunter began her career at age 17, modeling in Australia and New Zealand, appearing in Australian Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and for various campaigns throughout New Zealand and Australia. She was quickly snapped up by Ford Models and immediately embarked on a successful career, landing the Cover Girl cosmetics contract and becoming the spokesperson for the company. Hunter rose to global prominence after posing as a Sports Illustrated model in 1989. She subsequently appeared on magazine covers, including Cosmopolitan and on the 1994 "Dream Team" cover of Sports Illustrated's annual swimsuit issue. Hunter also graced the cover of Vogue Italia, Australian Vogue, American and international editions of Elle and Dutch Harper's Bazaar.

Hunter posed nude for a cover-featured Playboy pictorial published in April 2004.

Hunter is signed to Ford Models in New York, Select Model Management in London, and Chadwick Models in Sydney, Australia.

Hunter first appeared on television in the 1980s in an advertisement for Tip Top's "Trumpet" ice-cream.

Hunter guest starred in a 1997 episode of The Drew Carey Show as herself. She has appeared in several independent films, including 1999's A Walk in the Park and 2000's Two Shades of Blue, an erotic thriller with Marlee Matlin. She stars as a lesbian cook doling out relationship advice in the award-winning indie film La Cucina. She had a brief appearance as a sexy soccer mom in Dennis Dugan's The Benchwarmers (2006) and also played a sultry, bikini-clad mother in the music video for Fountains of Wayne's 2003 song "Stacy's Mom."

Hunter appeared on a 2005 celebrity episode of Lingo, where she and her partner Trista Rehn split $US30,000 for charity. Hunter is an ambassador to The Born Free Foundation, and established the Rachel Hunter Lowland Gorilla Fund. Hunter also appeared as herself in the 2004 Christmas Special of The Vicar of Dibley. She also starred in Confessions of a Go-Go Girl (2008), The Perfect Assistant (2008), the science fiction TV movies Piranhaconda (2011) and Swamp Volcano, aka Miami Magma (2012).

She appeared as a judge on New Zealand's Got Talent from 2012 to 2013. In 2015, Hunter fronted her own television series titled "Rachel Hunter's Tour of Beauty" for TV One where she traveled the world to discover what beauty meant in countries around the world.

Film and television work

In the late 1980s Hunter lived with rock musician Kip Winger.

At the age of 21, Hunter met rock star Rod Stewart, 24 years her senior, and they were married on 15 December 1990. Together they have two children, Renee and Liam, but separated in January 1999 and their divorce was finalized on 2 November 2006.

Hunter was engaged to NHL hockey player Jarret Stoll of the Los Angeles Kings, 13 years her junior, and they planned to marry in August 2009, but the wedding was called off.