Niki Taylor life and biography

Niki Taylor is an American model.

HEIGHT: 5′11″
MEASUREMENTS: 34C-24-34
WEIGHT: 125 lbs
HAIR: Dark Blonde
EYES: Hazel
BORN: March 5, 1976 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
DISCOVERED: When she was 13 her mom sent pictures of her to agencies in Florida. One signed her and pretty soon she was doing shoots for French catalogues and magazines like Seventeen.
AGENCY: New York-IMG, Paris-IMG, UK-IMG.
INCOME: Made approx. $4 million (U.S.) in 1994. Her estimated worth in 2000 is $6.1 million. Her Cover Girl contract is worth $9 million. Earns about of $15,000 a day.

RESUME: Models for Cover Girl in commercials, print ads, and billboards. Youngest ever model to be signed to a multi-million dollar contract (L’Oreal and, in Sept 1991, at age 17, Cover Girl). She is the youngest model to appear on the cover of Vogue. Niki made the cover of Seventeen when she was just barely 14 and had made her first million by 16. Has major modelling contract with Liz Claiborne. Owns own company Niki Inc. Has her own calender.

HOME: Has apartment in New York City, Miami, FL, and an Idaho ranch owned by Matt’s parents.
SWEETIE: Divorced from Matt Martinez, 24, a football player for the Miami Hooters. She now has a pro-hockey player (Panthers center) boyfriend, Rob Niedermayer.
Her motto is "Catch it before it falls." She exercises four times a week with a trainer. She also does kick-boxing and yoga.
OTHER: Her sister, Krissy Taylor, who died at her home in July of 1995 at the age of 17 because of asthma, was also a top model. She has two twin sons named Jake and Hunter, both 3 years old. She (in a red sleeveless dress) and her sons (naked in her arms) appeared on the Feb ‘96 cover of Harper’s Bazaar together with a pictorial inside.

Born Nicole Renee Taylor on March 5, 1975, in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. A supermodel while still in high school, Niki Taylor became the youngest model ever to earn a cosmetics contract, beginning a hugely successful career. Taylor grew up quickly, marrying and divorcing by age 22 and becoming the mother of twins at age 20. Though her career success was impressive, Taylor suffered dual tragedies in her private life -- the premature death of her 17-year-old sister, Krissy, and a near-fatal car crash in 2001.

The middle of three daughters, Niki Taylor grew up in a modest suburban home in Pembroke Pines, near Ft. Lauderdale in Florida. Her father, Ken Taylor, was a Florida Highway Patrol officer, and Barbara, her mother, was a former real estate agent. In 1989, Taylor's mother mailed photos of her daughter to modeling agencies. Taylor landed a spot with Irene Marie, a top Miami agency.

Taylor's career advanced rapidly. At age 14, she did her first shoot with Seventeen. "There's always one who comes along each year that you think is going to be a star," editor-in-chief Midge Richardson told People's Elizabeth Sporkin. "Niki is probably the most comfortable person of that age in front of the camera of anybody we have worked with."

Mindful of the dangers of letting their daughter travel alone on modeling jobs, Taylor's parents quit their jobs and took turns chaperoning her. When they couldn't travel, a relative or member of the management team would accompany her. By then they had hired an agent, lawyers, and a publicist for Niki and had formed a company to invest her money. Barbara Taylor brought Niki's older sister Joelle and younger sister Kristen (Krissy) along on one of the early shoots so they wouldn't get jealous. Krissy had a great time, but Joelle hated it. Within a year, Krissy was starting her own modeling career and appeared on the cover of Seventeen along with her sister.

Social critics bemoaned the use of such young models for adult magazines, but Taylor told Barbara Sgroi of Cosmopolitan, "Modeling came naturally to me -- I was just a normal kid who'd fly to Paris or New York City for the shows, then go back to school as if it were what everyone did." Taylor signed a multimillion-dollar cosmetics contract with L'Oreal at age 16 and later with Cover Girl. She was the youngest face to ever appear on the cover of Vogue and earned her first million by age 16.

At age 19, Taylor met and fell in love with Matt Martinez, a semi-pro football player; in 1994 they eloped. By age 20 she gave birth to twin boys, Hunter and Jake. She gained 70 pounds while pregnant, but was back to modeling within three months after their birth. The marriage ended in a bitter divorce two years later.

Taylor's seemingly charmed life was struck by tragedy when she discovered the lifeless body of her younger sister, Krissy, at the family home on July 2, 1995. Taylor phoned for help as her father desperately attempted to revive his daughter. While the cause of death was originally believed to be an asthma attack, it was later discovered that Krissy suffered from a rare heart condition called right ventricular dysplasia (RVD). Krissy's death was devastating to the entire family, although over time they would say it brought them closer together. "I may be 23, but I feel like 50," Taylor explained to Cosmopolitan's Sgroi. "I've been through a lot, but everything has been a learning experience. It's made me a much wiser, stronger person."

In the years that followed, Taylor cut down on her shooting schedule to spend more time with her twins. Still, with appearances in the swimsuit issue of Sport Illustrated, Taylor's popularity soared and she became one of the most well-known models of the 1990s. By 2001 she traveled only four to six days a month to New York and was working almost exclusively for Cover Girl and Nokia (a cell phone company).

Despite the years of attention she received as a model, Taylor's friends still described her as "down-to-earth" and "unaffected," choosing to remain in her Florida home rather than move to New York or Los Angeles. However, Taylor suffered from an abuse of prescription drugs. Her problems started with a prescription to Xanax for general anxiety and progressed to the painkiller Vicodin. Several people reported incidents in which she fell asleep at restaurants, and in February of 2001, Taylor checked herself into a 28-day rehabilitation program in Maryland.

In the early morning on April 29, 2001, Taylor's life would take one more difficult turn. She was one of two passengers in a 1993 Nissan Maxima driven by her friend, James "Chad" Renegar, a stockbroker, that slammed into a utility pole on a quiet Atlanta street. Renegar told police he lost control of the car when he reached for a ringing cell phone. Reportedly, neither drugs nor alcohol were involved. Both Renegar and the third person in the car, John Lauck, a banker, escaped serious injury, but Taylor suffered from internal bleeding, severe liver damage, and a shattered vertebra. Her face was not injured.

For the first few weeks, Taylor's condition was touch-and-go and her doctor warned that she was in danger of losing her life. When Taylor became fully conscious after two months she guessed that she had been in the hospital for only four days. Her slow recovery included 40 surgical procedures over the next four months. Taylor left Grady Memorial Hospital on June 26, 2001 and moved into a private rehabilitation facility in Atlanta. After so many weeks in intensive care she required extensive rehabilitation. Her biggest motivator was seeing her sons, who were cared for by their father during Taylor's months of recuperation. "All I wanted was to live to see my boys again," Taylor told US Weekly' s Ken Baker.

Finally, on July 17, 2001, Taylor was reunited with her sons in Florida. ". . . It could be a year before I feel even close to normal," she explained to Baker. "Modeling has been the furthest thing from my mind through this whole ordeal. I'm not making any decisions right now about it. A job is a job. I am much more interested in life."

Later that year, Taylor made her first public appearance since the accident as a presenter at the VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards.

Outside of modeling, Taylor was once an interviewer for segments of the syndicated program Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. She also covered events for NBC and guest-hosted MTV's Fashionably Loud.
In the late 1990s, it was announced that Taylor would work on a line of clothing, bearing her name, for Target.

Niki also appeared in Keith Urban's "Somebody Like You" music video in 2002. Taylor and Urban dated quietly from 2002–2004. There appears to be no paparazzi photos of them together.

Keith Urban "Somebody Like You" Music video :


In July 2005, Niki Taylor opened a clothing store, Abbie and Jesse's, in Franklin, Tennessee, with her manager and friend Lou Taylor (no relation). The store was named after Niki and Lou's dogs.

In the fall of 2005, Taylor launched her first fragrance, "Begin by Niki Taylor." She also founded the Begin Foundation for the Advancement of Women in Business. In 2007, Niki introduced the finalists on friend and co–Cover Girl spokesmodel Tyra Banks's talkshow.
Niki and male model Tyson Beckford co-hosted the new Bravo series Make Me A Supermodel. It premiered on January 10, 2008. Although the show was renewed for a second season, Taylor did not return as co-host, as she was pregnant during the filming of the second season.

Taylor will be featured on The Celebrity Apprentice 4 (U.S. season 11) in March 2011, hosted by real estate developer and media tycoon, Donald Trump.

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