'I don't want to hear somebody breathe': Linda Evangelista won't date again
Linda Evangelista hasn't been on a date in nearly a decade and has no plans to meet anyone.
Linda Evangelista hasn't dated in nearly 10 years, and has no plans to find a new partner.
The 58-year-old supermodel - who was diagnosed with cancer for the second time in July 2022 - can't bear the idea of sharing her space with someone else so is "not interested" in dating,and admitted she hasn't been out with anyone since before she was left disfigured when a CoolSculpting fat-freezing treatment went badly wrong in 2015.
Asked about dating, she told the Sunday Times Style magazine: “Not interested. I don’t want to sleep with anybody any more. I don’t want to hear somebody breathing.”
And asked when she last went on a date, she admitted: "Definitely before the CoolSculpting."
Linda feels "really scared" when she has to go out but quickly finds her anxiety eases once she's settled into a social situation.
She said: “I have social anxiety when I go to places or parties and I’m really scared. I anticipate failure before everything and think something bad’s going to happen. I’m like, waiting for doomsday to happen. But then after two minutes I forget about it. And then I’m always pleasantly surprised.”
The mother-of-one - who has 17-year-old Augie with Francois-Henri Pinault - admitted one of the reasons for her discomfort in the wider world is self-diagnosed Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
She said: “Things have to be symmetrically aligned. When I’m in the doctor’s waiting room I always straighten out their artwork on their wall.
"I have that disorder where when people make noises it hurts me. Like at the movies? That loud popcorn chewing or the rustling of the wrappers.
"I don’t go to the movies for that reason.”
Linda has the rare Birt-Hogg-Dube syndrome, which is caused by a rare genetic mutation and sees cysts form on the lungs, and she admitted she was "terrified" by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Friends thought the catwalk star was "nuts" because she began stockpiling groceries when the pandemic first hit China in January 2020, and she quarantined her deliveries for at least five days.
Despite her precautions, Linda has had the virus twice, and though it "wasn't so bad", she was still wearing a mask in public spaces over the summer.
She said: “My son said to me, ‘You know you’re the only person walking around New York with a mask?’
“It wasn’t bad at all [when I had COVID]. But I have to say, the one thing I’m the most bitter about is people yelling at you for wearing a mask. They know nothing about you, but they feel like they can tell you that you should take your mask off.”
