The Healthline Interview: Jennifer Gimenez and Brandi Glanville

Model-actress, Jennifer Gimenez.In July of 2005 Jennifer Gimenez had already achieved the life that most young starlets only dream of. A successful model since her teenage years, she had appeared in countless designer campaigns and runway shows for the likes of Calvin Klein, Chanel, and Prada and editorial shoots for the world’s top fashion magazines. Named one of Maxim’s “Hot 100” and Esquire’s “Women We Love,” she even made the leap into acting with roles on soap operas The Young and The Restless and The Bold and The Beautiful, and such big-budget films as Blow, Vanilla Sky, and Charlie's Angels 2.

But while the supermodel-turned-actress’s career was on the upswing, her personal life was in a serious decline. Only those closest to her knew of the severity of her drug and alcohol addiction, which threatened to destroy everything she had worked so hard to achieve.

“There I was in my house, on the cover of all these magazines and had all these movies out, and I was dying on the inside and didn’t understand why,” she says today. “Your world gets so small when you’re using and you feel so alone.”

Many of her friends had already abandoned her, so longtime friend Brandi Glanville, best known today as The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ latest addition, knew that it was time to step in. They had developed a close friendship since meeting backstage at a fashion show 15 years ago and Gimenez was even a bridesmaid at Glanville’s wedding to future ex-husband, actor Eddie Cibrian.

Gimenez and RHOBH star, Brandi Glanville.

“A lot of Jennifer’s friends had had it with her, just walked away from her in her time of need,” Glanville recalls. “I just saw her and she was lying a lot and she wasn’t going to be OK. All I kept thinking was that I was going to get a call from her mom saying that she was gone. So I had to do something.”

With assistance from Gimenez’s mother, Nelly, Glanville retrieved the model-actress’s Screen Actors Guild card and insurance information and started contacting treatment facilities on her behalf. On July 12^th, Nelly Gimenez put her daughter into her car and drove her to Aurora Las Encinas Hospital, in Pasadena, a rehab facility frequented by Hollywood celebrities.

“It was a long, bumpy, and windy road and she had some highs and lows and some crazy times in there, but I think that’s the push she needed,” Glanville reflects. “I knew that she needed to know that somebody cared. She really needed to know that not everyone’s going to walk away from you because you’re sick — and I just couldn’t.” 

Gimenez and Glanville, in costume. Jennifer Gimenez traces her drinking back to age 12. Having spent part of her childhood in Argentina, she admits to having felt lonely in the U.S. early on, and disconnected from much of her family back home. In her own words her first drink helped her feel empowered and offered her an escape from feelings of isolation.

“I think at that moment a beast was awakened,” she says. “I remember my first drink as if… it was a cross between Wonder Woman, She-Ra, and the Jolly Green Giant. I felt invincible—and that release, that escapism, is where that started.”

After being discovered by legendary fashion photographer Bruce Weber at 13, Gimenez’s drinking only escalated. Within a few years, as she became a much sought-after supermodel, she added drugs to the mix.

“Suddenly I was the breadwinner for my family, so the pressure was on, and I lost that whole sense of youth,” she recalls. “But you hear so many stories of the young girls going to Europe and getting lost really quickly.”

True, the early 1990’s were a dangerous time to be modeling. Heroin chic was in vogue, so models were expected to be as waifishly thin as that last, scraped-together line of the night. There were always glasses of champagne and bottles of hard alcohol around and many models were shooting up between their fingers and toes to avoid noticeable track marks.

“We were young people playing grown ups and I was literally selling sex before I knew what sex was,” Gimenez reflects. “I was 14 years old in French Elle and French Vogue and I was on my hands and knees and [French fashion photographer and former Elle International Creative Director] Gilles Bensimon is shooting this beautiful picture and it’s a double page, and I look like, ‘Come [make love to] me.’ It was very confusing. Drugs and alcohol helped me cope with situations that I was put in and the responsibilities, and learning to deal and get out of myself.”

Gimenez, in an early modeling photo.Gimenez was, by her mid-teens, experimenting with a wide variety of drugs including heroin. But it was cocaine (often laced with cheaper filler substances such as meth, heroin, and horse tranquilizers to both increase the dealer’s returns and raise the drug’s addictive power), which she first sampled at 18 that became her drug of choice. But what started off as a choice quickly grew into an expensive habit that was deeply impacting every aspect of her life.

“Brandi and my mom came to me and said ‘You are really sick and really need to go to treatment,’ and I said, ‘Treatment is for losers,’” she remembers. “So I kicked them out and was crying.  I said, ‘Why me god?’ and made a deal with god that if god gave me Hawaii — I felt the most connected to god when I was on a surf board — then I’ll give you me. And four days later, some guy I was dating was like, ‘Hey babe I have an extra ticket for Hawaii. Want to come?’ And I was like, ‘Oh man,’ and I went to Hawaii and then came back and checked into treatment.”

Walking into Las Encinas, a legendary L.A.-area rehab facility that had already hosted the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, as well as many of her own contemporaries, Gimenez was petrified.

“I speak four languages, am a woman of the world, had made millions, but when I got there, I went into child mode and ended up being in detox for three and a half weeks,” she remembers. “Now mind you, I went for five days to shut my mom and Brandi up. I said ‘I’ll clean up and call it a week.’ But I stayed nine and a half months even though I did relapse and then came back for another four months. For the first time in my existence I felt safe even though I was petrified.“

Little did Gimenez know at the time that she was not out of the water just yet. Addiction specialist and television personality Dr. Drew Pinsky, who served as the Medical Director for Las Encinas’ Department of Chemical Dependency Services at the time and supervised Gimenez in treatment showed his tremendous concern for his patient’s welfare when he called Gimenez’s mother, Nelly, three times, and warned her that her daughter may not make it through detox.

“It was pretty bad, my detox experience, but sometimes we have to go through that to get better,” Gimenez says.

Dr. Drew had cause for concern considering that this was not the model-actress’ first time attempting sobriety — she had already tried four times on her own — and sadly it would not be her last. Falling off the wagon the following November, she hit a new “high” with a $380 per day eight ball habit.

Gimenez, selling a fantasy.Returning to Las Encinas the following January, she was put in the psych ward for two weeks and placed on Subutex, a medication used to treat opiate addiction, to break her dependency from years of heroin-laced cocaine. But seeing other patients running around, screaming, and pulling their hair out was more than she could bear. So Gimenez attempted to hang herself.

“The last thing I remember is that my feet were dangling,” she recalls. “When I came to, I was strapped up, and just remember being so mad because I couldn’t even die correctly. All those people who talk about that hopelessness, I get it. I knew at that moment that there was one thing I had to change and that was everything.”

With her new sobriety date of January 15^th, 2006, Gimenez felt more committed than ever.  She even became involved with the facility, bringing actor and musician friends to speak at meetings and sponsoring other celebrity patients.  So when Dr. Drew was shooting the second season of Celebrity Rehab, he approached Gimenez about managing Sober House. After a successful, two-season stint on that show, she became a drug counselor on Celebrity Rehab.

“They used to tell me in treatment to dream, and I couldn’t imagine dreaming,” she reflects. “But your dreams come to you if you work for them. Sober House and Celebrity Rehab have saved my life a number of times.“

Unfortunately the same can’t be said for all the patients. In her time on these shows, she’s watched addicts like former Alice in Chains bassist Mike Starr and actor Jeff Conway, as well as former Las Encinas patient and Warrant singer Jani Lane die. But she’s also witnessed success stories like former Baywatch star Jeremy Jackson, adult entertainer Mary Carey, model Amber Smith, Crazy Town front man Seth Binzer, and baseball legend Dwight Gooden.

“I know a lot of people have bashed Celebrity Rehab, but for some of these cases, they were stars at one point, made a lot of money and were famous, but they lost everything, and for some of them, this is their only opportunity to get [rehab] because they don’t have the money or insurance to do this otherwise,” she explains. “I today have over six years sobriety and if it wasn’t for Celebrity Rehab and Sober House I wouldn’t be alive.”

Jennifer Gimenez, today.Today Gimenez, who has recently made appearances on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, alongside bestie Brandi Glanville, acted as a judge on SiTV’s Model Latina, will soon be seen in the horror satire film Chastity Bites, and is the spokesperson and Treatment Facilitator for KLEAN Treatment Center, an innovative recovery center in West Hollywood, credits her recent successes with her commitment to her sobriety program as well as her strong support network.

“I don’t forget the last day I was high or when I wanted to hang myself, and I still have that gift of desperation,” she admits. “I can think [wanting to use] through. I can call my friends. I have a group of confidantes and don’t have to keep secrets to myself and think I have to save the world.”

Gimenez’s dedication to her sobriety is not lost on her family and close friends, like Brandi Glanville.

“Jennifer is a rock,” Glanville gushes. “I’ll have a glass or two of wine around her and it really doesn’t affect her. She’s so solid. She’s not going to go backwards.”

Maintaining sobriety will take a lifetime of effort and Gimenez counts her blessings that she doesn’t have to face her future alone.

Gimenez and Glanville pose for a recent No H8 photo. “You realize when you’re down and out who your real friends are, and there are people like Brandi and my mom who showed up all the time,” Gimenez concludes. “I was really angry and I was scared and they would support me; they’d come and see me in treatment. My poor mom, I put her through hell and back, but they believed in me, and from them believing, it allowed me to believe — and I needed to believe in something. Now I’m a huge believer in second chances and dreaming big.”