Christie Brinkley once had a terrifying run-in with an elephant.
The 63-year-old model became an advocate for the endangered animals after coming face-to-face with a mother and her calf while working on a shoot for Sports Illustrated magazine over 25 years ago.
Christie, who had then-four-year-old daughter Alexa Ray – who she has with ex-husband Billy Joel – with her at the time, recalled to Social Life magazine: "I found myself eye-to-eye with a surprised and angry mother protecting her baby.
"She raised her trunk and trumpeted a warning! If I had [big] ears, I would have flapped them back at her. We clapped our car doors . . . We were two moms willing to die to protect our babies."
Meanwhile, Christie recently admitted she enjoys wearing a bikini when she’s just wandering around her house and garden.
She said: "I always put a bikini on and say, ‘Oh, it is just to wear around the house. I am not going to go anywhere in it. I just want to get a little colour while I am gardening’.
"I run around trimming my begonias to even everything out so I don’t have any tan lines.
"When you’re naked, you want those parts tanned."
Christie – who as well as Alexa, now 31, also has Sailor, 19, and 22-year-old son Jack with ex-husband Peter Cook – believes if a woman of any age and size if "brave enough" to don a skimpy bikini, they should continue to do so regardless of any critical comments they receive.
She said: "You know what? You can’t really critique a person over 50 — it is just like, if they are brave enough to put on a bikini then you let them be."
Christie Brinkley’s elephant encounter
