Liya Kebede Model Biography

Unless you pay close attention to the world of models and modeling, you may not necessarily recognize the name “Liya Kebede.” However, this young, beautiful, exotic, and Ethiopian model has certainly made her way up in the industry since her modest beginnings, having now appeared twice on the coveted cover spot of U.S. Vogue, and is also the 11^th highest paid supermodel in the world, according to a list released by Forbes.com in mid-July, 2007.

Liya Kebede was born on January 3, 1978, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where she also grew up and would likely have remained if a film director hadn’t noticed her while attending Lycee Guebre Mariam and introduced her to a French modeling agent. Soon, Kebede was working the runway and posing for photo shoots and ad campaigns in Paris, France, through a noted modeling agency there. She later moved from Paris to New York City, where she currently lives with her family, hubby Kassy Kebede (an Ethiopian hedge fund manager) and their children Suhul, a boy born in 2001, and Raee, a girl born in 2005.

Kebede is currently most known around the runway circuits in New York City, Paris, France, and Milan, Italy. She first garnered international recognition as well as critical acclaim after modeling for Tom Ford’s Gucci fall and winter fashion show in 2000, the same year she married Kassy. Her most famous magazine-cover appearances have been in U.S. Vogue (twice) as well as the French, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese versions of Vogue. She’s also undertaken ad campaigns for Victoria’s Secret, Revlon, Gap, Tommy Hilfiger, Yves Saint-Laurent, and Louis Vuitton, among many others. Impressive? But of course!

Other highlights in Kebede’s career include scoring the cover-girl face of Estee Lauder cosmetics company in 2003 with a cool $3 million-dollar contract, getting appointed as WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health in 2005, and actually appearing in two films (after all, almost all models—and singers, for that matter—think they should act, too!): Lord of War (2005), starring Nicholas Cage, and The Good Shepherd (2006), starring Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, William Hurt, Alec Baldwin, and Robert De Niro.

She gained further recognition after being named the 11^th richest model in the world ($2.5M) in July 2007 following the release of Forbes.com’s World’s 15 Top-Earning Supermodels, with model Gisele Bundchen coming out at number one with a whopping $33M in earnings from the previous year (if you’re thinking that’s a ridiculous amount of money to be earning for being a model, you’re correct). Other top earners in Forbes’ list included Kate Moss and Heidi Klum.