Beauty, Disrupted: A Memoir

by Carre Otis, Hugo Schwyzer

Overview

Teen runaway, supermodel, and actress Carré Otis found herself in the public eye from a very tender age. Millions of people gazed at provocative images of her in magazine and billboard ads from Guess and Calvin Klein as well as in features on the pages of Playboy and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. By the time she was twenty, they had also seen her on posters for the controversial film Wild Orchid, with Mickey Rourke. The troubled marriage to Rourke that followed soon thereafter was widely reported on in the media, as were Carré’s struggles with drugs and a particularly brutal eating disorder. But to see someone naked on the page or exposed on the screen and in tabloids doesn’t mean we know who that person really is.

After a decade-long deeply reflective and spiritual journey to discover for herself who she is, Carré found the balance and serenity she sought and is now ready to share her side of the story with the world. She confronts her complex past fearlessly and with unrelenting candor to set the record straight. The result is a narrative of success, despair, and ultimate triumph over sexual exploitation and our cultural obsession with appearance—a narrative of beauty disrupted, reclaimed, and made more radiant through self-acceptance, inner peace, and the love of family.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062024459
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	10/11/2011
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.26(w) x 9.24(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Carré Otis has long been one of the most recognizable faces in modeling, headlining in campaigns for Guess, Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, and Revlon. As a supermodel, Carré has appeared on the covers of Vogue, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, and Cosmopolitan, and has worked with many of the world’s greatest fashion photographers, including Richard Avedon, Herb Ritts, Helmut Newton, Peter Lindbergh, Patrick Demarchelier, David Bailey, and Guy Bourdin. While married to actor Mickey Rourke, Carré took an extended hiatus from modeling. When she returned, she also became an advocate for young women in and out of the industry. Carré has appeared on nationally televised programs, offering her unique insight into the business of beauty and the high price it demands. Carré lives in Colorado with her husband and two daughters.

Editorial Reviews

Carré Otis seemed to have it all. With her memorable face and perfect figure, she had been signed as a teenager to Elite Modeling by John Casablancas himself and in rapid succession, she had appeared on the covers of French Elle, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Allure, and Mirabella, to skim just the top of her credits. Beneath that frothy surface, however, things were festering. Everything came to a head during her brief (1992-1998) marriage with actor Mickey Rourke. During their volatile relationship, she battled not only anorexia and heroin addiction, but also her abuse of alcohol, antidepressants, uppers, downers, and diet pills. In Beauty, Disrupted, she describes how she finally banished the monsters lurking inside.