Melanie Rickey once flew to St. Tropez to interview the model: "Every year Naomi has a big party in the south of France in between the Grand Prix and Cannes so everyone's still in town. I hung around, waiting to interview her for ages. Finally I just introduced myself and she completely turned on me, screaming: 'Get her away from me.' It was such a shockingly violent reaction."
However, Sophia Neophitou, the editor of fashion magazine 10, who has worked with Campbell, insists that she will return: "The fashion world is the biggest forgiver of sinners in this world, she'll be fine, particularly as she looks amazing for her age." One model who has worked with Campbell adds: "Naomi is probably put under more pressure than any other model out there and the fact that she has lasted this long is a real testament to her strength."
But the tragedy for Campbell is that she clearly harbored dreams of being much more than this, as her much-vaunted friendship with Nelson Mandela suggests. She has claimed that the only reason she keeps modeling is that "the younger generation of black models needs to have someone creating opportunities" and that all of her behavior that has been interpreted as unnecessarily violent or overly litigious by the press was merely her "defending [my] rights." In an interview last year she was asked how she would like to be remembered. "Loyal," she replied simply.
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