Paulina Porizkova explains why she broke down in tears 5 years after husband's death: 'I pretended I was fine'
Paulina Porizkova continues to grieve over the death of husband Ric Ocasek.
One week after sharing a video of herself crying on the fifth anniversary of the Cars frontman's death, the 59-year-old supermodel took to social media to explain why she chose to be so vulnerable with her fans.
"Last week I posted a video of myself crying," she wrote. "It was the five-year anniversary of my husband’s death. In some ways, it was a day made even more difficult by the fact in all the previous years I pretended I was fine. That I ‘had pulled it together.’
"For the benefit of my loved ones, I thought I had to act strong. To keep helming the ship. So no one but me would be afraid of drowning. The result of which, as I mentioned, was that everyone around me thought I was fine, and no one knew how hard my life was or how much I needed a hand.
"So, five years later, I let everyone know how I felt," she added. "I was sad. I was overwhelmed. Sentimental. And by admitting it out loud, I’ve had many other people reach out to let me know they had similar days. That five years after their loved ones passing was unusually difficult. That all of us in the grief club can have odd days of real struggle. And I made them feel better and less alone. And it goes without saying, they made me feel better and less alone. Thank you friends, both IRL and IG. I need you as much as ever."
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On Sept. 15, Porizkova shared the heartbreaking moment with over a million of her followers on Instagram and admitted she had been "drowning" in grief.
"Here’s the thing. When you ‘pull yourself up by the bootstraps,' ‘make lemonade from lemons’ and see ‘the silver lining behind every cloud,' you make it all look easy," she wrote in the caption alongside a video of herself crying. "You make it look like no one has to worry about you, you’ve got it! I did exactly that following my husband’s death.
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"In the year following, I put on a brave face for my children and loved ones," she added. "And the result was, no one seemed to understand how much I was hurting. How hard it all was. That I was breaking. I was in the water, drowning, and everyone around me thought I was just waving to them. They waved back.
"The irony, of course, is that all of you, my long-time followers, know me better than many of my real-life friends," she concluded. "This is where I got vulnerable. This is where I cried. My level of loneliness was such that I had to go online to find someone to hear me. Yes, I understand how pathetic that sounds. I also understand it was my fault. So today, I’m not just crying online"
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Porizkova first met the Cars singer in 1984 on the set of the music video of "Drive." She was 19 at the time, and he was 40.
The former couple married in 1989, but after nearly 30 years of marriage, they decided to separate in 2018 after Porizkova said she decided to support him amid marital struggles.
"I was so devastated and so crushed, I couldn't make myself a sandwich or take a shower, never mind go to a business manager or an accountant and try to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to be doing with my finances," Porizova, who was removed from her late husband's will, told SheKnows magazine in 2023.
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"I've spent 57 years of not knowing s--- about finances, stuffing it into teddy bears and giving it to business managers. I didn't suddenly wake up one day and become financially savvy. I still feel like I'm learning this in little bits."
Porizkova said turning over her finances to her husband in the first place was a "mistake."
"Handing over the responsibility of my autonomy to somebody else — what a terrible mistake that was," she admitted.
"It's not that I made a mistake in trusting [my husband]; the mistake was in handing myself over to him like, ‘Here. You take care of me.’ That was a tremendous lesson, and one I've learned well. I'm never handing myself over to anybody ever again."
Fox News Digital's Janelle Ash contributed to this post.