Supermodels Database

Nicole Renee “Niki” Taylor (born March 5, 1975) is an American supermodel.

She was born in the suburbs of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Ken and Barbara Taylor, a Florida Highway Patrol officer and a photographer, respectively. Taylor was raised in Pembroke Pines, Florida and attended Cooper City High School. After graduating, her education included studying special effects and taking dance and singing classes. She has an older sister, Joelle, and her younger sister, Kristen, a fellow model, died of arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia on July 2, 1995, at the age of 17. Taylor married Arena football player, Matt Martinez, on July 19, 1994, and their twin sons, Jake and Hunter, were born the same year. Taylor and Martinez divorced in 1996 and she later dated country singer Keith Urban from 2002 to 2005.

Taylor grew up wanting to be a model and at age 13, she signed with a Florida modeling agency. She subsequently won a Fresh Faces contest in New York City and a $500,000 modeling contract. She began professional modeling at the age of 14 and two years later Taylor was a millionaire and president of her own company, Niki, Inc. Her first magazine cover was an issue of Seventeen and at 17, she graced the cover of Vogue, becoming the youngest model to do so. She has over 400 worldwide magazine covers to her credit and her six covers of Allure, Vogue, ELLE, Self and Shape, all in the month of May 1996, have become known as the “Niki Six.” She was named one of People magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People in 1991 and appeared in the 1997, 1998 and 1999 editions of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, as well as on the 1998 cover of their swimsuit calendar. In 1992, Taylor became the first spokesmodel under 18 to sign a major contract with CoverGirl and she became a feature in their national advertising campaign. Some of her other ad campaigns have been for Liz Claiborne, Nokia, Ellen Tracy, L’Oréal, Lee Jeans and Pantene. Taylor also simultaneously had six enormous billboards in NYC’s Times Square, in addition to three yearlong billboards for Liz Claiborne. Outside of modeling, Taylor has been an interviewer for several segments of the international syndicated show, Lifestyles, covered events for NBC and guest-hosted MTV’s Fashionably Loud. She also appears in former boyfriend Keith Urban’s “Somebody Like You” music video.

In 2001, Taylor went to rehab to treat an addiction to Vicodin, a prescription painkiller. On April 29, 2001, Taylor was critically injured in a car accident in Atlanta, Georgia. The driver of the car she was in attempted to answer his cell phone, lost control of the car and smashed into a utility pole. Taylor was wearing her seat belt at the time and was not thrown from the vehicle, however, she suffered severe internal injuries, including a collapsed lung and a torn apart liver, and she spent six weeks unconscious. Taylor was treated at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta and had at least 56 operations, as well as physical therapy.

Today, Taylor lives with her two sons in a French colonial house on seven acres in Brentwood, Tennessee. “I love being a mom and the chaos it brings me,” she told People. “It reminds me how lucky and blessed I am.” Taylor rarely models anymore, but she opened a clothing store, Abbie and Jesse’s, in Cool Springs with her manager and friend, Lou Taylor (no relation), in July 2005. She also founded the Begin Foundation for the Advancement of Women in Business, which helps women with business ideas but who have limited resources.

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