Cindy Crawford looked back at her relationship with Richard Gere in the new Apple TV+ docuseries The Super Models.
“I think I was 22 when we met,” Crawford, 57, recalled in episode 3, which debuted Wednesday, September 20. “In the beginning of a relationship, when you’re a young woman, you’re like, ‘You like baseball? I like baseball. You’re really into Tibetan Buddhism? I might be into that. I’ll try that.’ You know, you’re willing to kind of mold yourself around whoever you are in love with.”
Crawford and Gere met in 1988 when he was 39. Their 17-year age gap didn’t stop them from falling in love. They eloped in Las Vegas in December 1991 and filed for divorce in 1995.
In The Super Models, Crawford shared that their romance occurred during an important time in career. She had veered away from catwalks and was enjoying successful high-profile projects like her iconic Pepsi commercial.
“[Gere] was older, so I just was, like, in a different circle and not doing some of those same fashiony things anymore,” Crawford said on the Apple TV+ series. “That was a time in my career where I veered away from the high fashion elite and kind of took more charge of my career.”
One of those big decisions was when she stepped onto the 1991 Oscars red carpet determined to be a showstopper. “I got invited to go to the Oscars with Richard. I’m like, ‘Well, I mean, what do models do well? We wear clothes well. I better look good,'” she said. “That was kind of what my thinking was: if I’m going to go to the Oscars, I better be a freaking supermodel.”
She was, indeed, a freaking supermodel. The docuseries notes that actresses, such as Julia Roberts (Gere’s Pretty Woman costar) and Meg Ryan, leaned away from being too “glamorous” in an effort to be taken seriously as actresses. That meant all eyes were on Crawford as she stepped out in her stunning red halter dress with a plunging neckline.
“I had just done a Versace show in Milan so I had asked Gianni [Versace] to make a dress for me,” Crawford said. “When I showed up in that red dress, I think it was a little like, ‘Wow, fashion is back at the Oscars.'”
Crawford previously opened up about her and Gere’s relationship during a 2016 appearance on the “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast. “We’re friendly, but I think it’s almost like he’s gone back to being, like, ‘Richard Gere’ again, like a stranger because we don’t really see each other that much,” Crawford shared at the time.
She added that their age difference ultimately became an issue. “I think part of the problem in our relationship was that we were a lot of other things, but I don’t know if we were ever friends — like peers, because I was young, and he was Richard Gere,” Crawford said. “And then, as I started kind of growing up and growing into myself — it’s hard to change the nature of a relationship once you’re already in it.”
Crawford noted that she believes her marriage with Rande Gerber has lasted because they were friends first. She has been married to the businessman, 61, since 1998, and they share son Presley Gerber, 24, and daughter Kaia Gerber, 22.
Gere, for his part, was married to Carey Lowell, with whom he shares son Homer, 23, from 2002 to 2016. He tied the knot with Alejandra Silva in 2018. The spouses share son Alexander, 4, and a 3-year-old son whose name has not been announced.
