Elle Macpherson

Elle Macpherson (born Eleanor Nancy Gow; March 29, 1964) is an Australian model, entrepreneur, and wellness advocate best known for her supermodel career throughout the 1980s and 1990s. She earned the nickname "The Body" after appearing on five covers of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue between 1986 and 1994, a record at the time. Time magazine first applied the moniker in 1989. Since leaving full-time modeling, she's built a substantial business career, founding the wellness company WelleCo in 2014. She's maintained a residential and philanthropic presence in West Palm Beach, Florida, contributing to local real estate, cultural institutions, and community work, though her Australian roots and global business interests have kept her West Palm Beach work largely outside the international spotlight.

Biography

Early Life and Career

Macpherson was born in Killara, a Sydney suburb, and grew up nearby in Cronulla. She studied law briefly before a modeling agency discovered her in the early 1980s. After moving to New York, she signed with Elite Model Management and quickly landed major advertising campaigns for Gillette and Chanel.

Her first Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover came in 1986. She returned to that cover in 1987, 1988, 1993, and 1994, cementing her status as one of the most recognizable models of her generation. During this period, she also built a successful lingerie business. Elle Macpherson Intimates launched in 1990 through a partnership with the Bendon Group in Australia and New Zealand. The line expanded internationally and is credited with helping normalize the commercial women's lingerie market in Australia at that time.

Acting work followed. She appeared in the 1994 film Sirens alongside Hugh Grant and Sam Neill, and had recurring roles on the American television series Friends in 1998, where she played Janine Lacroix, Joey's roommate. From 2010 to 2013, she served as a judge on Britain and Ireland's Next Top Model.

WelleCo

In 2014, Macpherson co-founded WelleCo with business partner Andrea Horwood Bux. The wellness and nutrition company is based in Australia. Its flagship product, The Super Elixir, is a greens supplement marketed as a daily nutritional powder. The brand has since expanded to include collagen supplements, sleep formulations, and plant-based protein powders, distributing through its own website and select retail partners.

Macpherson has spoken publicly about WelleCo's origins in her own experience with autoimmune health challenges. She's also faced scrutiny for promoting wellness claims not backed by peer-reviewed evidence. The brand remains one of the more commercially visible wellness companies founded by a public figure, with reported sales across multiple international markets.

2024 and 2025 Bonds Campaign

At age 62, Macpherson appeared in early 2025 in an unairbrushed lingerie campaign for the Australian brand Bonds, posing in the company's Bases Flex underwear line. International media outlets, including the Daily Mail and Yahoo Entertainment, covered the campaign widely, noting the images weren't digitally retouched. Macpherson publicly linked her physical condition to her WelleCo regimen and lifestyle practices. In 2025, she celebrated her 63rd birthday by sharing photographs from a beach setting, reported by Parade magazine and other outlets.

Personal Life

Macpherson was married to French businessman Gilles Bensimon from 1986 to 1989. She later had two sons, Flynn (born 1998) and Cy (born 2003), with financier Arpad Busson. The couple were engaged twice but didn't marry. She's lived in various locations including New York, London, and Miami, and has maintained property in the West Palm Beach area of Florida, though her primary residence has shifted over the years and wasn't publicly confirmed as of early 2025.

West Palm Beach

History

West Palm Beach was founded in 1894 as a planned residential community for workers supporting the resort town of Palm Beach across Lake Worth. Henry Flagler, a Standard Oil co-founder who extended the Florida East Coast Railway down the state's Atlantic coast, was instrumental in the city's early development. His railroad brought construction workers and wealthy winter visitors to the region. By mid-twentieth century, West Palm Beach had grown from a service town into a substantial urban center with its own distinct commercial and cultural identity, separate from the exclusive enclave of Palm Beach.

Macpherson's connection to West Palm Beach dates to the early 2000s, when she began acquiring property in the area. Her investments concentrated on the city's higher-end residential districts, where waterfront and estate properties were already in strong demand. Palm Beach County Property Appraiser records are publicly searchable and document ownership histories for area properties, though specific transaction details associated with Macpherson haven't been independently verified in widely published reporting and should be confirmed through those records before citation.

Culture

West Palm Beach supports a range of cultural institutions reflecting both its history and contemporary population. The Norton Museum of Art, founded in 1941 by industrialist Ralph Hubbard Norton and his wife Elizabeth Calhoun Norton, holds a permanent collection exceeding 8,000 works. It's one of the largest art museums in the southeastern United States. The Kravis Center for the Performing Arts opened in 1992 and serves as the primary venue for touring Broadway productions, symphony performances, and visiting dance companies in Palm Beach County.

Macpherson has been associated with charitable giving in the arts sector during her time in the West Palm Beach area. Documented specifics—named grants, dollar amounts, or institutional partners—haven't appeared in verifiable published reporting as of 2024. Any specific claims about her named contributions to local cultural organizations would require confirmation through the relevant institutions' public records or annual reports.

Economy

Real estate, finance, tourism, and a growing technology sector anchor West Palm Beach's economy. The city's proximity to Miami, roughly 70 miles south via Interstate 95, combined with lower commercial rents and a less congested environment, has drawn financial firms and family offices northward over the past decade. Both residential and commercial real estate has seen sustained price appreciation, a trend accelerated by population migration into Florida during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Macpherson's real estate holdings in the West Palm Beach area, to the extent they exist, would place her among a broader cohort of high-net-worth individuals who've either relocated to or invested in the Palm Beach County market in recent years. The county's Property Appraiser maintains publicly accessible records for those seeking to document specific ownership claims.

Attractions

Worth Avenue in Palm Beach, accessible from West Palm Beach via the Royal Park Bridge, is one of the most recognized luxury shopping streets in the United States, lined with high-end retailers, galleries, and restaurants. The Breakers Palm Beach is a historic oceanfront hotel that first opened in 1896 and was rebuilt in 1926 to its current Italian Renaissance design. It remains one of Florida's flagship resort properties. The Palm Beach Zoo & Conservation Society is located in Dreher Park in West Palm Beach and is home to more than 550 animals representing over 190 species.

Downtown's Clematis Street concentrates restaurants, bars, and live music venues. The annual SunFest music festival runs each spring along the downtown waterfront and is one of Florida's larger ticketed outdoor music events, drawing tens of thousands of attendees over its multi-day run.

Getting There

Palm Beach International Airport (PBI) serves West Palm Beach with nonstop service to roughly 30 domestic destinations and select international routes. Located approximately three miles west of downtown, it's operated by Palm Beach County. Interstate 95 runs along the city's western edge, connecting it to Fort Lauderdale (approximately 45 miles south) and Miami (approximately 70 miles south). Florida's Turnpike provides an alternative north-south corridor.

Brightline, the privately operated intercity rail service, stops in West Palm Beach on its route connecting Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, and Orlando. The West Palm Beach station sits in the downtown core near Okeechobee Boulevard. Local transit within the city is provided by Palm Tran, the Palm Beach County bus system, which operates more than 30 fixed routes across the county.

Neighborhoods

West Palm Beach proper divides into distinct neighborhoods, each with its own character. Northwood, one of the city's older residential districts, has undergone significant reinvestment over the past two decades and now hosts a concentration of art studios, independent galleries, and small restaurants along Northwood Road. The Flamingo Park Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, contains one of the largest concentrations of Mission Revival and Mediterranean Revival residential architecture in Florida.

The broader metro area extends into incorporated municipalities including Palm Beach Gardens, Royal Palm Beach, Lake Worth Beach, and Lantana. Palm Beach Gardens is home to PGA National Resort, which hosts PGA Tour events and draws professional golfers and support networks as part-time or permanent residents. Macpherson's reported property interests in the county place her within a community including substantial numbers of athletes, entertainers, and finance professionals who maintain Florida residences partly for the state's tax climate.

Education

Palm Beach County Public Schools is the fifth-largest school district in Florida and the 11th-largest in the United States, serving more than 180,000 students across roughly 180 schools as of the 2023-24 school year. The district runs magnet programs in areas including the arts, engineering, and international baccalaureate studies at multiple campuses across West Palm Beach and surrounding communities.

Florida Atlantic University maintains its main campus in Boca Raton approximately 20 miles south of West Palm Beach, with satellite programming and community partnerships throughout the county. Palm Beach State College, headquartered in Lake Worth Beach, offers associate degrees, bachelor's programs, and workforce training across several campuses in the county. Macpherson has been associated with philanthropic interest in educational access in the area, though specific documented contributions haven't been confirmed in published reports as of 2024.

Demographics

According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2020 decennial census, West Palm Beach had a population of approximately 117,415 residents, with the broader Palm Beach County exceeding 1.4 million. The city's population is diverse. Approximately 34 percent of residents identified as Hispanic or Latino, 26 percent as non-Hispanic Black or African American, and 30 percent as non-Hispanic white in 2020 census figures. The city's median household income was approximately $52,000 as of the most recent census estimates, a figure sitting below the national median and reflecting the broad economic range within the city's boundaries, even as Palm Beach County as a whole skews toward higher income levels due to Palm Beach and other affluent communities.

Macpherson's presence in West Palm Beach connects her to a city considerably more economically and ethnically varied than the exclusive enclave of Palm Beach across the lake. Her documented philanthropic and civic interests, where they touch on West Palm Beach rather than the broader region, exist within that varied urban context rather than solely within the luxury-residential sphere with which her name is most often associated.

See Also

• Palm Beach, Florida
• Norton Museum of Art
• WelleCo
• Palm Beach International Airport
• Brightline