A model of decorum

I know I have the air of a man who spends most of his time in the company of Page 3 stunners and men's mag cover girls, but this is actually the first time I've met one of the pre-eminent glamour models of her generation.

In Dublin to plug her involvement in TV3's new Style Wars reality show – catch it on Tuesdays at 8 o'clock – Caprice has just spent the last two hours giving good pose to HP snapper Mark Nixon in her suite at The Dylan Hotel. The black eye the 38-year-old got the other day playing tennis has been expertly covered over with make-up, and her long blonde tresses coiffed to perfection.
"This is me done up to go to work," Ms. Bourret laughs. "I look at modelling and the whole fame game as business. And by the way, what I did was commercial modelling. It's very difficult when you guys say glamour because when you say glamour you mean Page 3, which is cheap and disgusting."
Well, that's me told! However you argue the semantics, Caprice has had a hugely successfully modelling career with Wonderbra, GQ, Cosmo, Esquire, Maxim, FHM, Sports Illustrated and Playboy for whom she posed nude in March 2000 all on her C.V.
Add in either real or rumoured affairs with former Arsenal footballer Tony Adams, England cricketer Kevin Pietersen and oil heir Alexander Davis, to name but three, and you can understand why she's been prime tabloid fodder for the past 15 years.
"New York has this reputation for being overrun by paparazzi, but London is a thousand times worse," Caprice says of the city she's called home since 1996. "Coming out of a club at three in the morning with a guy on your arm you're kinda fair game, but they totally invade your privacy. I used to use this car service whose drivers I knew and happily chatted away to. One day I noticed they had a tape recorder in the front seat recording my conversation. I thought, ‘Okay, that's why every time I go out there are four or five paps trying to get a picture of me without make-up or with a boob hanging out or my cellulite showing!' They'd know it was me because I'd say ‘account number 1234' and tip off whoever it was who was paying them. I felt really violated by that.
"I'm 38 and have cellulite – big deal. We're human for goodness sake. But that's what sells. That's the culture. They're fascinated by celebrities and celebrity-ism sells."
I'm not sure if ‘celebrity-ism' is a word, but it should be! Prior to becoming one of the world's most photographed women, Caprice lead a pretty carefree teenage existence in Hacienda Heights, California.
"I was a little Miss Goody Two Shoes," she smiles. "Straight ‘A' student, captain of the cheerleaders, the one that Mom was so proud of. She knew I was an overachiever. I demanded a lot from myself. I still do."
What were her best subjects at school?
"I'm really good with numbers, and I was really good in debate, and I guess that's about it. Spanish I cheated my way through. I shouldn't have said that, but I did! I was in school plays where I sang, and generally loved music. I remember my first concert – it was Earth Wind & Fire, who I went to see with my Mom. I got to DJ recently in Dublin at a club called Buck's Townhouse. I'm not going to change my profession though – it was just for a laugh."
What would her guaranteed floorfillers be?
"The recent Timbaland/Justin Timberlake song ‘Carry Out' is really good, and you can't go wrong with David Guetta or Kanye West. ‘Gold Digger' is an oldie but a goodie!"
It's obligatory for all kids to go through a rebellious phase. What was Caprice's?
"I didn't have one. No, really! I got good grades, got home on time and never got into drugs. I was a good girl."
Did anybody in Hacienda Heights rebel?
"There were the Goths, who were sort of ostracised from everyone because they were different. The stereotype is so for real – the footballers and the cheerleaders are the popular ones – that's how it works."
And Americans still wonder why Columbine happened! It wasn't long after completing her studies that the then 18-year-old Caprice was heading for the bright lights – and shark-infested waters – of New York.
"I did beauty pageants, and a woman who is still my agent, Victoria, spotted me and said, ‘You could make a lot of money modelling'," she recalls. "I love New York. I love the energy, I love the business. I would have found it scary, though, if I hadn't been with a great agency that looked after me and put me in a flat. What I always say to girls who want to go into modelling is, ‘If an agency asks you for money, it's a scam'. They should organise everything – your shoots, your tests, your travel, your accommodation – for you. There's a lot of bullshit in the industry and you've got to be careful and weed them out. I was very lucky. One of my first covers was Vogue and then I did a campaign for Calvin Klein."
Caprice mightn't have been a rebel growing up in California, but she was when she became a cover girl.
"I'm one of the first models who actually took control of my pictures. Like when I do a cover or a layout, the magazine owns the pictures and straight thereafter I own them. And then I'd make a hundred grand a year just selling my pictures. I said, ‘You want me on the cover, these are my terms. Period.'"
A photographer was telling me recently about the popcorn and Diet Coke diet loads of girls are on in order to remain a Size Zero. Did Caprice ever succumb to that sort of body fascism?
"You know what, I never did. I'm a woman, I have curves, I'm not stick-thin. And I'm okay with that. You either like a girl like me, or you don't, because I'm not changing."
Bands always seem to hang out with each other, but not models. Are girls just too directly in competition with each other to pal around?
"I never had good friends who were models," Caprice says matter-of-factly. "I'm not here to diss modelling because it's made me what I am today. It's given me opportunity; it's given me independence; it's given me the most privileged life on Earth. But I just never connected.
"I was also a lot smarter than the other girls. I came to another country, to England, looked at the industry and said, ‘Where's a niche? Where can I dominate? What will make me different?' And the answer was not being part of that whole androgynous heroin chic thing."
While Caprice is adamant she's never taken heroin – "If I had, you'd sure have hell read about it in the papers" – she knows somebody who has.
"Poor Courtney Love. She's not a bad person, she's just a mess. I've never done drugs, and maybe I'm square because in my industry just about everyone dabbles. I say my industry, it's my former industry because I'm in business now. But with heroin you're fucked. And you're fucked forever. Forget about your looks – it messes with your brain, it messes with your personality. These people are doing it because it gives them confidence, and when they stop doing it they become a mess, like Courtney."
So, if she's not hanging all the time with Kate ‘n' Naomi, who does Caprice look to for some sisterly solidarity?
"They're not necessarily in the public eye, but in my industry, people like Jacqueline Gold, who owns Anne Summers. Fascinating woman. Karen Millen, I love her. Women who are a bit older than me and who've excelled. They're smart, they have their own business, they've created empires. They impress me, and they've inspired me. And of course, there's my Mom. She's my best friend in the world, I talk to her 5,000 times a day. I've got her, my grandma, my cousins, my uncles, we're all really close."
Along with her media work, Caprice currently designs and models her own lingerie, swimwear and nightwear for a client list that includes Tesco, Dorothy Perkins, Next and the successor to Littlewoods, Very.co.uk.
"My ambitions are just ridiculous," she reflects. "And my responsibility is just ridiculous. I'm responsible for employees, I'm responsible for their families."
We've talked a lot about the boardroom but not the bedroom. In between running her business empire, does Caprice have time for relationships?
"I've found it hard to find an equilibrium," she admits. "I'm a strong personality, which doesn't help. I have a very big life with interesting friends all over the world. I've got a schedule that's not normal and, well, it takes a really secure guy to deal with that.
"I don't necessarily believe there's a man of my dreams. I'm a little more mature and a little more realistic. The man of my dreams is someone I want to rip the clothes off and that goes away with everyone. I want to find somebody who's solid; who I can communicate with; who makes me laugh; who I respect and who I get on with. When you're in your twenties it's more of a lust thing – ‘Hey, I desire you, let's be boyfriend and girlfriend for a few months'. When you get older, you need somebody more substantial and solid."
What's Caprice's idea of a good night out?
"Going to a restaurant with about 10 mates, having a few drinks, laughing. Then going to one of our houses and having a few more drinks! I can't be bothered going clubbing anymore, although the odd fancy event can be fun."
Does she want kids?
"Of course I do. For women it's an issue. In our late ‘30s we think, ‘Oh my goodness, I've been so obsessed with my job and with my work, and just having the best time of my life, I better start thinking serious now.'"
It's at this point that our chinwag starts getting a bit too personal. For me that is.
"Do you have kids?" Caprice enquires.
No, I don't.
"What age are you?"
46.
"Are you in a relationship?"
I was until recently, but sadly we broke up.
"Why?"
I was given a pop quiz – "Do you want to get married?" and "Do you want to be a dad?" – and sadly failed.
"What the hell are you waiting for?" Caprice says, no, yells at me. "Your sperm are going to start swimming backwards! What are you afraid of? What's wrong with you? That's such a man thing. Get over it! Do you honestly think there's something better out there than what you had with your girl? I'm going to lecture you, Stuart! Forget about lust and, ‘Oh my goodness, I want to rip your clothes off', because that eventually goes away. You need a partner. What do you want to be, 60-years-old and having your first kid?"
But enough about me. Willing it seems to give pretty much anything a go, Caprice once staged and starred in a musical version of notorious ‘70s skin flick Debbie Does Dallas.
"Funny, clever, witty – it has all the elements needed for a hit show, so I bought the rights from the people in New York and put it on in South Africa where it was a huge success. I was going to bring it to London, but the investors we had didn't work out and the plans had to be shelved. It's something I may re-visit."
Caprice was so enamoured of Jo'burg that she bought a house there.
"It's the most exciting place in the world. If the crime wasn't such a problem, I'd probably live half the time in South Africa. I had to put up barbed wire. I had to put up a wall taller than this room and install lasers in the yard. I had to get a security guard with the biggest gun you've ever seen in your life to guard my house and I was still terrified.
"I got to know some interesting people there like President Zuma's son, Dudu, who's unbelievably intelligent, very well travelled and thinks differently because he didn't go through apartheid to the degree that his father did. So I think when Dudu comes to power – and he's being groomed for that role – the country's going to change."
How did Caprice end up landing her current Style Wars gig?
"My agent here, Tara Sinnott, heard about this search TV3 were doing to find Ireland's next fashion icon and thought I'd be perfect as one of the judges. So, she pitched me to the production company and they said, ‘Hmm, we're not sure if she has an opinion or not'. They realised the opposite when we met, and I got the job. For the last four years it's all been about rejigging my persona from model to businesswoman, but I want to get back into TV again."
The pinnacle of Caprice's televisual career so far being her appearance on Celebrity Big Brother 2005.
"I wouldn't do it now because it's frivolous, but when I did it was perfect," she reminisces. "It was fantastic marketing. And better than that, people were able to see me for who I am, not as journalists think I am."
Plus she got to hang out with Bez!
"I love Bezzie! Wasn't he fabulous? And smart. There's a reason he won that show."
So, finally, what's the five-year plan?
"Expand, expand, expand! There's a big world out there that I'm determined to conquer."
You certainly wouldn't bet against her!