Nicole Renee Taylor aka Niki biography

Real biography: Call her the LeBron James of modeling. A posing prodigy, Niki Taylor was a supermodel at an age in which most people barely know how to drive. In more recent years, Niki stared tragedy in the face and proved she is a fighter…and a hot one at that.

Life Story

Born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to a highway patrolman father and a photographer mother, Niki signed with a local modeling agency when she was 13. Within a year, she won a Fresh Faces contest in New York and signed a modeling contract worth half a million dollars. By 16, she was: a millionaire, the president of Niki, Inc., and one of People’s 50 Most Beautiful People. By 17, she was gracing the cover of Vogue, making her the youngest model ever to do so. (Noticing a theme?) She also became the first girl under 18 to sign a major spokesmodel contract with CoverGirl. In the spring of 1996, at 21, Niki appeared on six women’s magazine covers in the same month: Allure, Elle, Marie Claire, Self, Shape and Vogue.But Niki also experienced extreme adversity at a young age. In 1995, Niki’s younger sister Kristen, a fellow model, died of arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia (ARVD). In 2001, Niki went to rehab for an addiction to Vicodin; that same year, she was critically injured in a car accident in Atlanta. She suffered a collapsed lung and serious liver damage, and underwent some 80 surgeries.After a fling with country singer Keith Urban and a marriage to Arena Footbal League player Matt Martinez—whom she gave birth to twin boys with at age 19 (!)—Niki now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her second husband, NASCAR driver Burney Lamar. She owns a clothing boutique and operates the Begin Foundation to help women start their own businesses—which makes sense, because if there’s one thing Niki knows how to do, it’s begin something.