Irina Shayk gets what she wants
Irina Shayk felt it was time to pick up driving six years ago while she was living in Los Angeles and eight months pregnant. At the age of 31, she was a supermodel living with her partner at the time, Bradley Cooper, and she had always depended on Ubers. Now, though, the back seat was making her queasy, and the entire exercise felt absurd. She had reached adulthood. When she awoke one morning, she said to herself, “That’s it.” With her increasing belly cramped behind the steering wheel, she practiced driving on Sunset Boulevard with her learner’s permit in hand and her hands at 10 and 2. A few weeks later, she gave birth to her daughter, but she was still determined to get her license.
Shayk attended ten two-hour lessons. When it came time to set up her driving test, she was advised to pick a location with less pedestrian traffic in order to minimize anxiety. And some told her to stay away from Santa Monica. Overly packed. Shayk continues, “I was like, ‘I want to do it in Santa Monica.'” “I want to have everything ready.” She completed the exam. She went away.
Shayk moved to New York a long time ago, and she hardly ever drives there. Despite their separation, she and Cooper are still loving parents to their now kindergartener, Lea. Maybe you’ve witnessed that dedication in action. Photographers last summer documented their Italian holiday with a zeal for documenting akin to that of Werner Herzog.
For some, feeding the tabloids with plenty of material has turned into a full-time profession, but Shayk is still a functional model. She began her career in Sports Illustrated and was criticized for having a “too commercial” appearance for high fashion, but recently, Marc Jacobs and Versace have featured her in advertisements. She was chosen by Furla to head their autumn 2023 campaign. She posed for a new Fendi capsule collection this past summer.
