Caprice is feeling brave these days and she knows why. “Oh, my little friend I had here,” he says, tapping his forehead lightly. ‘My tumor. That was really scary. That changes everything.’
The supermodel and businesswoman is about to star in a film she produced and financed herself: the lush, romantic and very snowy A European Christmas on Channel 5. But Caprice says she wouldn’t have had the courage to start making films on her own without the courage acquired by surviving the worst days of his life.
‘It’s a great blessing. Silliness doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. The holidays I loved no longer mean anything to me. Now it’s all about my family. I do what I love to do for work, and that’s it. I’m not afraid anymore.’
Caprice was training for winter sports reality show The Jump seven years ago when a scan revealed the terrible news. “When someone says you have a brain tumor, you think, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to die.’ I have two three-year-old children and I’m going to die.’ “It was horrible, a difficult moment.”
She has two sons, Jett and Jax, with her husband, financier Ty Comfort. ‘The doctor said: ‘It’s not cancer, but it’s growing.’ Obviously, that is just as dangerous. You could wake up one day and the whole left side of your body will never move again, so you have to get rid of it.’
Caprice appeared on the covers of hundreds of magazines during the 1990s and 2000s, including Vogue, Playboy, and Sports Illustrated.
There were enormous risks involved in treating meningioma. ‘This is brain surgery. There’s a chance you’ll wake up and something’s not working, something’s gone wrong.’
The operation lasted seven hours and involved temporarily removing part of his skull to remove the tumor. Coming to consciousness afterwards was strange, he says. ‘I wasn’t aware of how extreme it would be. When I woke up there were tubes coming out of everything, I was in the intensive care unit but it looked like the Starship Enterprise.’
However, his face lights up when he remembers realizing he was going to be okay. ‘That was one of the happiest moments of my life. I said, ‘Thank you God for giving me this extra opportunity.’ I said thank you to my dad because he is in heaven taking care of me.’
Caprice Bourret was born in Hacienda Heights, a suburb of Los Angeles, in 1971. She appeared on the covers of hundreds of magazines during the 1990s and 2000s, including Vogue, Playboy, and Sports Illustrated. When youth magazines were popular in Britain, Caprice was their favourite. After some supporting roles in Hollywood, she moved to London and starred in Hollyoaks and the spy thriller The Dream Team with Roger Moore, and appeared in celebrity versions of Big Brother and Come Dine With Me, and on Dancing On Ice.
She took control of her image at the turn of the century, forming her own company and launching a lingerie range with Debenhams. He later bought the license back and By Caprice expanded into home goods and other products. She still models her underwear line with Peacocks. He is said to be worth around £24 million.
His operation lasted seven hours and consisted of temporarily removing part of his skull.
After years in the gossip columns, she met and settled down with financier Ty in 2011. They live in London but also have a beautiful villa in Ibiza, which is where she speaks today, on the terrace in the late season sun. after celebrating his 53rd birthday.
Caprice says that after the operation she began to reevaluate. ‘Everything changed in my professional life, my personal life, with some friends. I stopped going out as much. I just wanted people around me who meant something to me, who gave me something and I gave them something. It wasn’t just about me anymore,” he says. ‘In the past it was always me, me, me. I used to believe my own nonsense. I’m the first to admit it.
What difference did this rethinking make? ‘I’ve done a lot more charities. It’s about giving back because they gave me a second chance. It may sound a little cheesy, but it’s real when it happens to you.’
Making movies is part of the new approach, he says. “I thought, ‘I’m going to make this world a better place.'” It may not be on a massive scale, but I have a platform and I’ll do what I can.” That meant turning my back on the old ways. ‘I choose not to do reality shows anymore; some of them are very toxic. I’m making nice Christmas movies, cheesy and wonderful and romances that are very formulaic You know how it ends, but do you feel good after watching it?
Why take on the enormous challenge of financing, producing and starring in films? “No one would accept me,” he says with his typical directness. ‘The supermodel stereotype. I couldn’t even get an acting agent. And I just thought, ‘You know what? Screw this, I’ll do it myself.
The new film A European Christmas stars Caprice as producer and Philip Boyd, who plays a retired actor.
It’s lovely to hear that very British phrase pronounced with an American accent. ‘I’m in a fortunate position to be able to finance this, but it’s still a lot of money and I wanted minimal risk. “I surrounded myself with people who have done a lot in this space.”
A European Christmas stars Caprice as Ivy, a producer who once had success with a Christmas movie. Now he’s struggling in his life and his career, so he’s trying to make another one, trying to recapture the old magic by tracking down the star of the first film Hunter, played by Philip Boyd, who retired from acting and returned to her native Serbia to bring her two children in peace. As the tagline goes: “Can Ivy open her heart to love and rediscover the true meaning of Christmas?”
The rights have been sold around the world and Caprice is preparing to shoot a Scottish festive film in Aviemore in January, but why focus on Christmas? ‘Because it is sold. I am a businesswoman. I’m not going to sit here and lie to you: I love making money. But whatever I do, I have to have passion and love for it. And I’m obsessed with Christmas.’
What is the evidence for that then? ‘We have four Christmas trees in the house. I’m already listening to Christmas music. First we visit my family in Los Angeles, then my husband’s family in Florida on the 26th and then we also have a celebration in London after the New Year. So the kids love it. Those spoiled rascals get very nervous.
Jett and Jax are now 11 years old. One of them was born to a surrogate mother after several failed IVF attempts, while the other was conceived naturally – to the astonishment of his mother – and was born just a month after his brother. Caprice has never said which is which, but she does say, “I was so naive before I had kids.” I thought, ‘My life is not going to change.’ I’ll have babysitters. But when you have those kids, you don’t want babysitters. The unconditional and crazy love you have for your children is indescribable. You would take a bullet for your children without even thinking about it.
She has two sons, Jett and Jax, with her husband, financier Ty Comfort.
The boys make their acting debut in this film. ‘People think the world of acting is very glamorous. They said, ‘We want to get involved. We want to take acting lessons. I said, ‘Okay, why don’t you appear in my next movie?’ They said, ‘Oh my God, we could tell all our friends, we’ll be on TV and we’ll be famous.’ On the second day they said, ‘No, mommy, we’ll take care of the finances like daddy said.’
She seems pleased by this. ‘I said to my husband: ‘See? There was a method to my madness. Acting is hard work. They don’t understand unless they experience it. So they did and now they are out. They are thinking about finances. Good choice. That’s very sensible.’
The other surprising thing that happened after the children were born and the tumor was removed was that she married Ty, despite years of resistance. ‘I always said, ‘Why do I need a piece of paper to validate how I feel about someone?’ Then we had the boys and it became important to me. So we paid £45, went to the registrar with our children, got married and went back to work the same day.’
Was it worth doing it? ‘It felt different. How naive of me to think it wouldn’t have worked. I’m very independent, but when you’re married it’s so lovely. He is my best friend, my husband, the love of my life. And everything is going to get better,” he says. ‘It’s a lot of work. I’m not saying everything is amazing all the time, it’s a work in progress, you have to put a lot of effort into it, but I’m glad I waited until I found the right one. I never I got engaged, never.
He once said that keeping a man happy was simple. ‘Honey, don’t stop with the fireworks. All you have to do is feed them, give them compliments and sex. That’s it, we’re fine.’ Isn’t it a little stressful to think that you have to have fantastic sex all the time when you’re fifty? She laughs and clarifies: ‘I didn’t say fantastic sex. It doesn’t have to be fantastic. That’s a relief.
A European Christmas is unashamedly romantic. ‘There is a formula for Christmas movies: you have to have all the elements. These are wholesome movies.’
The place was recommended to me by a friend from Serbia and it is spectacular, but with a month left the forecast said it would not snow. “That was the biggest drama of my life,” Caprice says, throwing up her hands in mock horror. ‘In Christmas movies it is essential that there is snow. I got scared and thought, ‘Oh my God, the movie is finished.’
‘So for the second time in 20 years I started praying. I was like, ‘God, I promise you x, y and z if you give me snow.’ And I have God as my witness that the only three days it snowed in the entire season was when I was there. ‘How crazy is that?’ She shakes her head in amazement. “By the way, the snow melted two days later.”
Did you keep your deal? ‘I did. The charity I donated to was happy. And I stopped yelling at my kids so much. I bite my tongue when they drive me crazy.’
Caprice will also star in the Scottish film, but will only act as a producer in the following ones. “My whole life I’ve had to think about how I look, so I’m carving out another path (off-screen) that could continue into my 90s.”
Why do you need to work? ‘I am a grafter. It comes from not having anything growing up. We wake up and have goals, aspirations and passions. Can you imagine waking up without any of that?’
Caprice can’t help but return to a topic. ‘Another reason I work is because I like to make money, period. You might say, ‘Oh, that’s gross.’ You are so American. That’s so rude. Okay, whatever. But I bet you like making money too,” he says with a broad smile. “I like my independence and being able to make a difference.”
She runs her fingers through her long blonde hair and sits contentedly under the Ibiza sun. There’s a moment in her new movie where her character Ivy says, “I know it took me a while, but I figured it out…the happy ending.” Is that true in your life too, after all the scares of the last few years? “100 percent,” Caprice says. “Out of something bad has come something so good, so gratifying.”
- A European Christmas airs later this month on Channel 5.