Lara reveals meeting Sam was a turning point
She shot to fame as the girl from the 'Where the bloody hell are you?' Aussie tourism ad, before becoming a glam WAG on cricketer Michael Clarke's arm and then a reality TV princess with her own show.
But these days Lara Bingle's nude scandals are a thing of a past, as she enjoys high-end fashion modelling, all the while running her own beauty company and being a mum to two boys she shares with husband Sam Worthington.
Now the 30-year-old Australian model has opened up about how life has changed since she met Avatar star Sam, admitting she'd "never really trusted anyone entirely" before going public with her romance with the 40-year-old movie star in January 2014.
"When I was younger, I think I'd try to impress a person by adapting to theri ways, but with Sam, from the get-go, I was just myself," she writes in a detailed first-person piece for ELLE Australia.
Lara and Australian cricketer Michael Clarke famously became engaged in March 2008, with Lara being his biggest cheerleader till their split was confirmed two years later.
Her 2012 reality show, Being Lara Bingle, showed the aftermath of Lara being involved in a leaked nude photo scandal with sports star Brendan Fevola, and the claims she had "flushed" her engagement ring from Michael down the toilet.
The model's controversial past is something she was wary of Sam finding out about.
"When I first met him, I was nervous and I'd be like, 'Don't read anything, you might get pulled away,' because there was a lot of crap," she recalls.
"And he was like, 'I don't even know what you're talking about'."
Lara says she and Sam now "reminisce" and "laugh about" things portrayed on her reality show, with the model admittng "I knew it wasn't going to be the proudest chapter of my life".
The pair secretly, who tied the knot in December 2014, welcomed first son Rocket in March 2015, and the second, Racer, in October 2016.
Now life has been about juggling her career with motherhood, and Lara credits her success to her man, revealing her tells her "don't feel guilty" about enjoying both.
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