>>93399
When she first made a name for herself, people in these parts thought she must be from somewhere in the Balkans. But she was born in Ukraine, her mother’s homeland. It was her mother I made all the arrangements with. Her father was Montenegrin but I never met him. He never attended any of our meetings.
We took many great photos. She was only 14 but she looked and posed like a world star, not just a face from a few television series. Her talent for acting and posing was obvious. At the age of 14, this young girl already knew what she wanted.
“The vamp on these pictures is only fourteen?! Wait a second, was this even legal to publish?”
“Who says it was published? I gave my agency only the studio photos. These ones, made in a bathroom, were for Milla’s private purposes. I never showed them – not to mention offered them – to anyone until 2007, when they were displayed at my retrospective exhibition for the first time.”
“One can see there’s a lot of makeup here and everything… Who pays for all that? She? Her mother? You? Your agency? The buyer?”
“I pay up front for the makeup artist, but then I settle accounts with the agency when I’m paid my fee. It all depends on whether my photos sell well or not; usually we split the money fifty-fifty. By that time, I had won a certain amount of recognition for myself, even on American soil, so I could afford the initial investments. And Sipa Press and Gökşin always played fair. I never ran into any problems.”
Like I said, she and I first had a session at my studio. For the second session I used my connections to use Milla Jovovich a fancy villa in Santa Monica for the day. All I had to do in return was to take a few pictures of the owner’s daughter. Also a 14-year-old girl, but not acquainted with the other two.
“What other two? Milla and her mother?”
“Mother? Yeah, right… Milla brought a school friend with her. When we decided to take a break for lunch, we got into my car and headed off to a restaurant – me and three 14-year-olds! In a split second, Milla climbed into my lap and said: “Let me drive!” The other two in the backseat were screaming, either thrilled or terrified. What could I do – I let her drive for half a minute or so. Then I managed to explain that if someone saw us we would both go to jail, not just me.
Finally, when we got to the restaurant, we sat down to lunch and gave our orders. I was at a loss for what to talk about for an hour with these three spoiled brats. All right, the villa owner’s daughter seemed well-mannered enough, but the other two… I asked them how they’d met. Milla’s friend replied: “When Milla stole my boyfriend and banged him.” “Come again?!? She did what? How old are you, kids?” Then the kid explained that she’d started smoking, drinking and having sex when she was ten!!! But now, she said, she’d left that all behind… Except the sex.
I wanted to run like hell! But we had one more photo session to go. We got through it somehow and then drove to L.A. Milla’s house was the closest, so I dropped her off first. Soon afterwards, when we got to the other girl’s home, she asked, “So, how about a date?” For Pete’s sake, get out of here, child! A date, indeed!