Cameron Diaz retired or took an eight-year hiatus from acting, but she’s still been around. She has her wine label, she was a guest judge on Drag Race, she does interviews with GOOP and podcasts. She recently decided to come out of retirement to do a just-announced action-comedy with Jamie Foxx on Netflix. Appropriately, she just spoke to a podcast called Second Life, “that spotlights the career changes that can come at any age.” Cameron spoke about her early modeling career and how she believes her first modeling job was actually moving drugs abroad.
Cameron Diaz shared that she believes she unwittingly served as a drug “mule” while attempting to start a modeling career in Paris.
Eager to see the world and able to save up for a Paris apartment thanks to catalog modeling work she’d done back home in California, the future star moved abroad as a young woman in hopes of making it big as a model. But, as she shared on the Second Life podcast last week, she now suspects that the only modeling job she got was actually a cover for transporting drugs.
“I didn’t work a day,” Diaz, now 49, said of striking out as a model in Paris. “I was there a full year and I didn’t work one day. I couldn’t book a job to save my life. I got like one job, but really I think I was like a mule carrying drugs to Morocco — I swear to God.
“It was before TSA [Transportation Security Administration] or anything like that,” she added. “It was like early ’90s. They gave me a suitcase that was locked that had my ‘costumes’ in it — quote, unquote.”
When Diaz arrived in Morocco, officials asked her who owned the suitcase, and whether or not it could be opened. She eventually told them it was not hers.
“All of the calculations in my head went running back, like ‘what the f*** is in this suitcase?’ I’m this blond-haired, blue-eyed girl in Morocco, it’s the ’90s, I’m wearing torn jeans and platform boots and my hair down, and this is really unsafe.
“That was my only job I ever got in Paris,” she added.
So basically, Cameron did some catalog work in California and moved to Paris to try and make it as a model. She didn’t book any jobs but one, which sent her to Morocco with a locked suitcase, supposedly containing her costumes. She was questioned by officials, but obviously they let her go… Did they keep the suitcase? Unclear. Did she actually go to a set and model after that encounter? Also unclear. This story is really sketchy and sounds like the beginning of Brokedown Palace. Not sure if it’s hyperbole or not, but I’m side-eyeing this story a bit. All those worries about being a blonde girl in Morocco in X outfit that ran through her head once stopped… why not do those mental calculations before accepting a locked suitcase in your possession when traveling from one country to another as a foreign national? Potential drugs aside, I get that this was before 9/11, but there had already been plane bombings by the 90s. I like Cameron and I’m sure this was meant to be an anecdote about a crazy thing that happened, but it comes off like a weird story about naivety (cluelessness?), luck, and privilege.
Photos credit: Avalon.red and Getty Images
Hmm. I was a young blue-eyed girl in the 90s. No way in hell anyone could’ve payed me to travel to another country with a curious locked suitcase! At that time I lived in Austin, and nobody could’ve gotten me to deliver a locked suitcase across town lmao. This is a weird story. I get much older ladies telling stories like this because unless you’re going back far enough, we know too much shit now. And hell, I knew about stuff like this in the 90s come on.
Lots of people at that age are not …. Thinking well. Esp if she was desperate for a job. She ran into the wall where her privilege ended and she got lucky that what she walked away from was a sketchy story.
I 100% believe this. This is a girl who is a fair skinned Latina, so she already had a fair amount of privilege. Combined that with youthful stupidity and cluelessness, I absolutely see her trying to find a way to make money with the least amount of effort possible. Cameron and I are about the same age and are LA girls. Stupidity abounds. Thank goodness that she didn’t emerge as a cautionary tale. Given that she’s from Long Beach, her life could have taken her elsewhere.
The 90’s were weird. Like you could do incredibly unsafe things and somehow manage to somehow be ok. Or other side of the coin you could do nothing and somehow die. I look back on things I did in the early 00’s and I am like –
How am I alive
Same, I Did some really risky and stupid shit in high school and college and wonder how I made it out alive.
ETA: just saw your second comment and same again! There are so many things I’m going to have conversations about with my kids that I wish my parents had with me.
Yes to these comments. Going away to school as a teenager, I shudder when I think of the unsafe and risky stuff I did. Glad to be alive
Agree w/these 90s comments as well – seeing the bizarre, unsafe things I did as a teen back then make no sense now, and I’m glad to still be alive too. I think it is easy to overestimate a young person’s knowledge & worldliness back then, especially from today’s standards. My experiences definitely impact the conversations I have had and will have with my young son.
To be clear none of it was illegal. It was just bad choices based on growing up in a bubble fueled by trauma based actions and alcohol.
Catalog modeling must pay quite well if she could live in Paris for a whole year & not book one job. As for nobody checking anything; well, I traveled in & out of London a few times in the early 90s & I distinctly remember getting grilled by security before even getting to check in–is that your suitcase, did you pack it yourself, is that water in that bottle? Take a drink, etc., etc. Even earlier than that, when flying on Royal Jordanian, I got wanded in LA & patted down in Jordan (in a black isolation booth, with a female cop). Cameron was lucky & kinda dumb, but she was young & had dreams. I, too, would like to know the rest of the story. What did she do next? Did she actually go to a shoot in Morocco? Did she just turn around & go back?
I did catalogue modeling in 2000-2003. My agency was legitimate but small, not Ford or anything and I have to say, catalogue work was steady and gold. You had to be booked for a minimum of 3 hours so you didn’t waste your time and an hour was $150-175. I mostly shot catalogues for large department stores selling high end clothing. Those were easy gigs and the atmosphere was wonderful. Everyone on the team made you feel good and you made bank! I still remember one of my first big checks for just a few hours of work which I spent on a luxurious mattress – you know, you spend third of your life in bed, so 🙂
If you can do it – go for it! You don’t even have to be conventionally pretty. That’s the thing about catalogue work. They need ALL types of people.
Interesting, Sarah, thanks!
I too am side eyeing this messy tale. First of all carrying drugs INTO Morocco where some of the world’s finest drugs were plentiful, uh no.
Lip fillers? She looks more like Dove Cameron.
Back in the day? No lip fillers weren’t a thing back then. Brown lipstick and she’s always had a big mouth.
As odd as it sounds, I believe this. The models are super young, live in a bubble and dont expect this to happen to them, plus shes an American with a EU Visa! Thats a gold mind for smugglers-especially in the early 90s’ when Americas reputation wasnt in the crapper.