Amanda de Cadenet () (born 19 May 1972) is a British photographer, and media personality based in Los Angeles, United States. She began her entertainment career in the 1990s, first as a presenter for British series The Word and The Big Breakfast before moving to Los Angeles to briefly pursue an acting career. A tabloid figure at the time, she transitioned to a more private career as a photographer in the 2000s. She has hosted an eponymous interview series on the Lifetime Channel.
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Career
1990–1999: Early career
At age 18, de Cadenet began her career as a co-presenter for The Word, a late-night Channel 4 entertainment show in 1990–1995. She also co-hosted the British television show The Big Breakfast.
Her career and reputation as a 'wild child' made her a British tabloid figure and she became only more well known when she married Duran Duran bassist John Taylor in 1991 at age 19. They moved from the United Kingdom to Los Angeles the following year. She embarked upon a short-lived movie career, appearing in Allison Anders's segment of the 1995 anthology film Four Rooms, Fall (1997) and Brokedown Palace (1999).
2000–present: New ventures
Her career then turned to fashion and portrait photography, working for magazines such as Spin, Jane and Harper’s Bazaar, among others. In 2005, she published a photo book entitled Rare Birds. Her celebrity subjects have included Drew Barrymore, Sofia Coppola, Demi Moore, Olivia Wilde, Mary J. Blige, Keanu Reeves, Beck Hansen, and the members of The Strokes.
In the 2010s, she returned to television and worked on a series of eponymous interview projects. In 2011, it was announced that de Cadenet would be the host of a new television interview series called The Conversation with Amanda de Cadenet, airing on the Lifetime Channel, with Demi Moore as a co-executive producer. On the show, de Cadenet has interviewed female guests such as Hillary Clinton, Lady Gaga, Portia de Rossi, Rita Wilson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Zoe Saldaña and Jane Fonda. During the production of The Conversation, she developed a second show with Lifetime, a weekly late-night television talk show featuring de Cadenet entitled, Undone with @AmandadeCadenet. The show ran for six episodes in 2014. In 2018, she worked with Showtime to develop a pilot for a half-hour weekly news-magazine show tentatively titled Now What With Amanda de Cadenet. The show did not air. In 2019, she developed a ten-episode spin-off podcast of The Conversation in partnership with Spotify.
In 2016, de Cadenet founded Girlgaze, a global online, multi-sided platform which connects women and non-binary creatives with different businesses, companies and brands. Speaking on her role as CEO and past experience as a photographer, she said “I'm interested in the stories [women and nonbinary] people have to tell, because of my own experience of being shut out of so many creative opportunities because of my gender.” For this work, Fast Company named her one of 2020's "Most Creative People in Business."
In 2017, she released her second book and collection of photography, #girlgaze: How Girls See the World. This was followed in 2018 by a book of essays published by Harper Wave titled It's Messy: On Boys, Boobs, and Badass Women.
Personal life
De Cadenet was born in Hampstead, London and is the daughter of Anna, (née Gerrard) an interior designer and model. Her father was former racing car driver Alain de Cadenet, her parents separated, when she was 9, and her brother Alexander was 7. At 14, without permission, she left home, to live with friends, and sought modelling work, meeting a young Davina McCall, who was working as a model booker. De Cadenet was subject to a Ward of court order and was returned to full time education, with an evening curfew at home. She became a television presenter for Channel 4, from 1990.
De Cadenet, faced intense interest from the paparazzi while living in London, culminating in the publication of photographs of her breast feeding her daughter in a public park. She left England in 1992, moving permanently to the United States.
Her paternal English grandmother, Valerie Braham, (an actress) was married to Maxime de Cadenet, who was a lieutenant or a film technician in the French Air Force. According to The Times, he "claimed that his French ancestors had fought with Charlemagne in the 9th century".
De Cadenet was married to Duran Duran bassist John Taylor from 1991 until 1997. At the time of their marriage, according to de Cadenet herself, she was only 19, and pregnant, and sober, she subsequently sought recovery from alcohol, following their daughter's birth and their relocation to America. Taylor and de Cadenet have one daughter, Atlanta de Cadenet Taylor.
In July 2006, she married guitarist Nick Valensi of American rock band the Strokes. Their twins were born in 2006.
Filmography
Talk shows
The Word (1990–1994); presenter
The Big Breakfast (1994–1995); co-presenter
The Conversation (2012, 2015–2016); host, executive producer
Chelsea Lately (2012); guest host
Project Runway (2014); guest judge
The Talk (2014); guest co-host
Undone with @AmandadeCadenet (2014); host, executive producer
Now What With Amanda de Cadenet (unaired pilot, 2018); host, executive producer
Acting
The Rachel Papers (1989)
The Blue Flame (1993)
Four Rooms (1995)
Grace of My Heart (1996)
Fall (1997)
The Hunger (1997); TV series, 1 episode
Implicated (1999)
Mascara (1999)
Brokedown Palace (1999)
Arrested Development (2013); TV series, 1 episode
Podcasts
The Conversation (2019–present); host
Other appearances
Whatever Happened to the Wild Child? (2005); TV documentary
Barely Famous (2015); reality TV series, 1 episode
Embrace: The Documentary (2016)
Elles (2018); TV documentary