Emily Ratajkowski posed nude in a sizzling Instagram photo shared from a getaway to Greece, holding a glass of wine in a position that kept the image within the platform's nudity guidelines. The 35-year-old actress and model stood by the water with her wet hair cascading over her shoulders, aiming what the post described as a smoldering stare at the camera.
The nude shot was part of a larger set of holiday photos, including several showing Ratajkowski in a barely-there bikini. She travelled to Europe shortly after news broke that she had landed a seven-figure book deal following a viral tell-all essay about her post-divorce sex life.
Seven-figure book deal and viral essay
Ratajkowski, who previously released the bestselling essay collection My Body in 2021, inked a new deal last month with Penguin Press for another collection titled Mother F***er, following a bidding war involving 12 competitors, according to Deadline. She went viral in June after an essay in The Cut in which she wrote that she went from "Madonna" to "w****" once she started "compulsively dating" after her divorce.
Divorce from Sebastian Bear-McClard
Ratajkowski split from her husband, movie producer Sebastian Bear-McClard, in 2022 amid rumors about his fidelity, one year after the couple welcomed their son, Sylvester Apollo Bear. McClard, who has worked with the Safdie brothers and holds a credit on the Adam Sandler film Uncut Gems, married Ratajkowski at a courthouse wedding in 2018. Sylvester was born in March 2021.
Ratajkowski wrote that "in a time period that felt both instant and excruciatingly slow, my marriage collapsed. Six months after my son was born, my husband and I stopped having sex. Less than a year later, we separated." When the split became public, a source told Page Six that McClard "cheated. He's a serial cheater. It's gross. He's a dog." Ratajkowski later liked a tweet reading, "can't believe that little b*** cheated on emrata."
She wrote that she "hated the condescending way people looked at me in the wake of my breakup. Their furrowed brows, the pity in their faces as they delivered an 'I'm so sorry, Emily.'" She added: "I couldn't stand my pathetic reflection in their eyes. They saw me as someone who was unwanted, who had been left. A reject with the burden of a needy, hungry, two-foot-tall sidekick." She said she had feared becoming a "single mom" since childhood, believing it would leave her with "no freedom, no choices, no emergency exit."
A femme fatale persona
Ratajkowski wrote that she adopted the persona of "a villain: Poison Ivy. Catwoman. Sexual but scary. And she drank gin martinis. Many, many gin martinis." She wrote: "She was not tragic. Nothing close to a victim. No one needed to feel sorry for her. In fact, they should all be jealous."
She promoted the essay with an Instagram album in which she posed topless under an open leather jacket, miming breastfeeding a baby doll, with a drink in her hand and a man in underwear standing on a window ledge behind her.
Graphic details from the essay
Ratajkowski described a bar date with a man with a "nasally stoner voice" who wore "bright hoodies" and "obnoxious gold jewelry," making him look like a "walking, talking Myspace page." She wrote that going home with him left her "especially satisfied by his expression when he looked down at me," adding: "He couldn't believe I was putting his d*** in my mouth. He told me I looked like Cleopatra when I gave head. I'd found everything I'd come there for - a praying mantis devouring her mate."
Before that night, she had slept with only "eight people," all of whom she was "pretty sure would fall in love with me, because I wanted to feel precious." She wrote that she believed men "didn't fall in love with, want forever with, raise babies with, or take care of sluts," and recalled feeling "naivete and inequality" hearing men casually discuss women they had "f***ed" and stayed friends with. "I decided to f*** my way into a new kind of woman," she wrote. "I wanted to destroy the Madonna, the special girl I'd worked so hard to be before an eight-pound baby had torn my vagina in two, and replace her with the w****."
Her first post-divorce date was with a sober DJ, whom she did not name, who lived two blocks from her former marital home. She wrote that he opened the date by saying incest "actually runs in my family" and described his mother and sister walking in on him watching what he called "some sibling s***" pornography. "That was my introduction to the dating scene. I didn't f*** him, okay?" she wrote, calling him "an anomaly."
She also described a fling with an "Elder Millennial" her friends called "ugly," whose "dirty talk" she found grating but whom she stayed with for the ego boost. She wrote that "many men are turned on by motherhood" because they had "experienced the loneliness that comes with years of selfishness" and were drawn to "self-sacrifice," adding, "Did they want me as their mommy? Maybe."
Harry Styles, Brad Pitt and other romances
Ratajkowski had on-off flings with DJ Orazio Rispo and spent time with Pete Davidson and Eric Andre. She also sidestepped romance rumors involving Brad Pitt.
In March 2023 she was photographed kissing Harry Styles in Tokyo, despite reportedly being friends with his ex, Olivia Wilde. A source with inside knowledge told the Daily Mail at the time that "Olivia and Emily were friends and this is a betrayal." Ratajkowski later dismissed the kiss to the Los Angeles Times, saying she was "not thinking about guys" but "sometimes things just happen."
The Daily Mail also reported that Ratajkowski was seen in conversation with Tom Brady during billionaire Michael Rubin's 2023 Fourth of July party in the Hamptons. Brady soon after began dating Russian model Irina Shayk, whose past relationships include Kanye West, Bradley Cooper and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Ratajkowski also had a fling with French actor Stéphane Bak, known for Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch and Asteroid City. The pair were spotted kissing in Paris in the fall of 2023, though an insider told the Daily Mail it was just "a good time," not a serious relationship.
McClard's grooming allegations
In March 2023, it emerged that McClard had faced grooming allegations and been fired by the Safdie brothers' production company, Elara Pictures. He was in mediation with the Safdies at the same time he was going through divorce proceedings and a custody battle with Ratajkowski.
Ratajkowski has largely stayed quiet publicly about the circumstances of her divorce, telling the Los Angeles Times she was "scared" to be more candid because "I'm learning that outspoken women don't often get their children."
