Madonna’s ex Jenny Shimizu says she felt like a ‘high-class hooker’ while dating singer
Madonna’s ex-partner Jenny Shimizu admitted to feeling like a “high-class hooker” during her relationship with the singer in the 1990s.
The 57-year-old model, now married to the notable brand adviser Michelle Harper, reminisced about her time with the “Material Girl” singer in Hulu’s new documentary series, In Vogue: The 90s. Shimizu said she couldn’t ever say “no” to Madonna, especially when the “Queen of Pop” was in her reigning era.
“I mean, you’re not gonna say no to Madonna in the ‘90s,” the Calvin Klein model confessed. “Not only was it great feeling like a high class hooker – because really it was.
“You’d get a phone call like, ‘Hey can you meet me at my Paris show. You’re in Europe right?’ So I’d be like, ‘Yeah, I’m just finishing Prada. Right after Prada I’ll catch a plane over,’” Shimizu remembered. “And I would. I’d go over to her hotel, to the Ritz, at like four in the morning, have sex, and then fly back to Milan.”
At the time, the Foxfire actress had already come out as gay. Since then, Shimizu has worked to advocate for LGBT+ rights, taking part in several demonstrations to push for marriage equality.
The runway star was discovered when she was an auto mechanic in Los Angeles. Calvin Klein tapped the young talent to head their CK1 campaign before she became the first Asian model to walk and open for Prada’s Fashion Week presentation in 1993.
In the new documentary, Shimizu expressed gratitude for her “firsts” in the 1990s, appearing on billboards in Time Square as she made her way in the fashion world.
“Being Japanese and having my parents going through internment camps, and being gay, and – to walk down the street and always get harassed in some way, for one second, seeing that campaign… it was such a, you know, it was a big statement,” she explained. “And I really am grateful to Calvin because he actually did something that was so positive globally.”
She added: “I remember my friends brought me to Times Square and said ‘Look!’ And I had just done a Banana Republic campaign. And underneath it said, ‘American Beauty,’ and never in my life had I been described as American or as a beauty.”
Shimizu notoriously dated Angelina Jolie while she was supposedly exploring a relationship with Madonna. The 49-year-old Maleficent lead met Shimizu on the set of Foxfire.
According to a 1997 interview with Girlfriends magazine, it was love at first sight for Jolie. “I fell in love with her the first second I saw her,” she told the publication.
However, Jolie was connected to Johnny Lee Miller, her husband of four years. The duo ended their marriage in 2000.
“He was around when I was figuring things out about myself, when I was realizing that I was attracted to women also,” Jolie said of Miller in conversation with Girlfriends. “When I realized that somebody like Jenny could be a deep love for me, he realized it, and he took it very seriously.”
