As a model in the nineties, celebrity chef Lorraine Pascale broke down barriers when she became the first black cover girl for American Elle.
Travelling the world walking the runway for Chanel, Lagerfeld and Chloe alongside her friends Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell, she was so busy having fun, she had no idea how she was making history at the same time.
“I just loved the catwalk and thought it was fabulous to be on the cover of a magazine,” she tells Ateh Jewel on the Second Act podcast. “I had no idea what it meant.”
She still remains in touch with Kate and Naomi. “It was always competitive. But yeah, I do stay in touch with them. We check in.”
Now in her fifties she is inspiring a generation of women all over again - this time to embrace their grey hair via her social media accounts.
“I have braids and I got tired of every time there was one grey hair it was showing like a beacon,” says the 54-year-old, who is mother to Charlie’s Angels actress and DJ Ella Balinska, 30. “Then I had loads and I got so sick of it. I thought, You know what? I'm going to go grey. It's a bit patchwork, but I'm glad I've done it now. It's just about choice and feeling empowered to do what you want. You have to be ready. Suddenly one morning, I was like, oh, I'm ready.”
Away from the catwalk, Lorraine has taken on some extraordinary pivots in her career from training to be a car mechanic, she went to the renowned Leith’s Cookery School to become a chef working alongside Gordon Ramsay, before switching to become a hypnotherapist and currently a trainee doctor of counselling and psychology.
“I loved school, it felt like my safe space,” she says. Her achievements are all the more remarkable given she still struggles with post traumatic stress from growing up in foster care from when she was born.
She reveals in the chat how she recently reunited with her 94-year-old biological dad for the first time since she was a baby, and discovered she had a whole new family.
“It was healing. For my whole life I’ve felt I’d done something wrong. That scene in Good Will Hunting with Robin Williams where he said to Matt Damon’s character ‘It’s not your fault’, I sobbed.
“But I recently found my biological father. So that whole sadness completely went. I did all this therapy from when I was 16, which helped a lot. But finally being accepted by him was amazing.”
After a turbulent start, life seems to be finally coming together for Lorraine in her Second Act.
“50 is a great time,” she says. “I honestly did think people just said it to try and make themselves feel good about turning 50. But I genuinely believe something happens, where you feel so much more grounded - I know what I want now.”
Listen to the Second Act podcast, now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts and Youtube.