I put one version of this story in the links this week, but it’s worth discussing in an individual post. Elle Macpherson has seemed, to me, like a rather clueless person for some time. But I didn’t realize just how clueless she is: she actively pursued a relationship with Andrew Wakefield, and they’re now for-real together. If his name seems familiar, that’s probably because you’ve read some of the various exposés on Wakefield over the years. Wakefield was the “doctor” who first made the fraudulent link between vaccines and autism. Wakefield and his now-debunked “studies” were ground zero for the anti-Vaxx movement. And Elle Macpherson wants us to know that she pursued him.
Elle Macpherson has been with her new love for a while. The supermodel, 54, was photographed kissing Andrew Wakefield in Miami, Florida, on Friday one year after her divorce from billionaire Jeffrey Soffer. A Miami modeling source tells PEOPLE Macpherson and Wakefield, 61, “have been dating for a while and seem to have much in common. Both are interested in alternative health practices and nutrition and sort of buck the norm to pursue their own idea. They agree on many health and nutrition issues. But he is not that well known around Miami.”
The source adds Wakefield, a disgraced doctor who linked vaccines to autism in a retracted study, was married for many years before meeting Macpherson.
“Elle swept him off his feet after they met at a business convention last year,” the source continues. “They have kept things low-key but the romance is not new.”
Wakefield was a gastroenterologist in Britain before being removed from the UK medical register for unethical behavior, misconduct and fraud. In 2010 the British General Medical Council barred Wakefield from practicing medicine after investigating inquiries that Wakefield acted dishonestly in his research and conducted invasive and unnecessary procedures on children. Afterward, his 1998 paper, in which he falsely claimed that the polyvalent measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine was linked to autism, was retracted. He continued to defend his anti-vaccine views in 2011 saying that his findings and research were not fraudulent.
An interest in holistic medicine is different than a doctor committing medical malpractice and fraud to further an anti-vaccine movement. I mean, everybody has the right to fall in love and whatever – I couldn’t care less about Elle and Wakefield’s romance. But don’t dress up the romance as “Both are interested in alternative health practices and nutrition and sort of buck the norm to pursue their own idea.” That’s gossip malpractice.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Getty.
“Both practice non-scientific bullshit.”
There, I fixed it!
Several things to unpack here.. 1) she’s an idiot. Obviously. She’s okay being with someone who got in trouble for lying and performing unnecessary medical procedures on children.
2) the comment about him being married for several years before meeting her means.. he cheated? Or what?
3) this guy should face continuous punishment imo. He started the anti vaccine movement, which has had long lasting consequences. It was confirmed yesterday that an infant in CA died from whooping cough. How many more children have to die from preventable disease?
Children in my neighborhood died from last year’s flu. They were not vaccinated. One had a father who defended his little girl’s “choice” not to put something “artificial” into her body.
One of the beauties of vaccination is that we, as informed adults, get to make it happen before our kids can object. I know that sounds snarky but honestly – kids are not old enough to understand that shots will protect them, not old enough to cut through the bullshit, not old enough to have learned the science. Shots hurt and they’d say no. We adults make a lot of mistakes when taking care of our kids, but vaccinating to keep them healthy is a good use of our authority. It’s the responsible choice. It pains me so much how we as a society are letting our children down and exposing them to harm.
Completely agree. Children rely on their parents to make the right decisions for them. My kid would literally eat strawberries and popsicles for every meal if given the choice. And definitely would say no to shots and medicine. As his mom, I know that even when he cries getting a shot, that his temporary pain is worth knowing he’ll be better protected from serious illness.
But you and I and all the other responsible parents are also smart enough to believe in science and that’s clearly not the case with these people.
she needs a new hair style and a new boyfriend. What terrible choices
Yeah, to go with her new face, apparently.
SMH. Who knows why people fall for other people…but of all the men available to her, why this guy?
Bc she is a next level lunatic? Strangely – a friend of the family dated her in the early 90’s and he broke up with her bc she was nuttier than squirrel shit.
Wow that’s interesting! I think her picker is broken too if she thinks he’s all that.
Too old for Elon Musk?
Just…how wealthy did Wakefield get with this dangerous practice because Elle don’t mess around with single figure millionaires.
Yes, very true – she was one of the originators of the SuperModel retirement fund aka marry a multi-millionaire or billionaire.
She does not. Arki Busson collects models like charms on a bracelet, and I’m still amazed he can so much as afford a bus pass.
Elle MacPherson who uses Rhino horn medicine and the guy who says vaccines cause Autism? Two horrible people found each other, great!
He was already dead to me. Now she is, too. What a dip.
When I graduated from nursing school in the 80’s, one of my first patients was a baby dying from a vaccine-preventable disease (and the child was not immunized). I was so desperately sad for the parents and the grandparents and the baby, not understanding why it hurt worse than the other deaths and too new and too naive to understand how the pain and suffering of that event would come up for me every time an anti-vaxxer opens their mouth.
You want an opinion on vaccine? great, then you be the one to sit in a dark room while another child dies of a preventable-disease.
My god, that’s so awful. I had a friend in elementary school who had polio, and he had to wear big metal braces from the hips to the ankles. Eventually they got better ones, and small enough to go under his pants. Then one day he was crossing the street, a trucker thought “that kid will just speed up and get out of the way”, he didn’t get out of the way, and he died.
I think it is a relationship for publicity only. I believe her name recognition is being used to “launder” his reputation and boost anti-vax propaganda. I think this propaganda is being used to both divide us and to create the conditions for a pandemic. The anti-fax movement is essentially biological warfare. Who exactly is funding this? It’s suspicious to me that so many D List and has-been celebrities are involved. A way for them to make easy cash? Who is paying you, Elle MacPherson? Jenny McCarthy? Charlie Sheen? Cindy Crawford? Jenna Elfman? Kirstie Alley? Kristin Cavallari? Rob Schneider? Selma Blair?
This was one of the stranger CB headlines I’ve read lately. Weird that she would pursue such a despicable guy. What exactly was the attraction, I wonder?
“An interest in holistic medicine is different than a doctor committing medical malpractice and fraud to further an anti-vaccine movement.”
Exactly. How cray that she can whitewash this.
Of course they met at a business convention! Wakefield has never been in it for the science or for the kids, it’s always been about the money!
The autism paper was a fraud: he forged data, twisted facts and the kids’ stories so that they’d fit with his claim (the parents did not recognize their stories in the case studies anymore), he was being paid by a firm trying to sue the vaccine company and looking for an angle and he was also trying to commercialize his own version of the MMR vaccine. There was nothing benevolent or about « natural remedies » there, it was about cold hard cash and how to make tons of it.
I hate the guy and definitely loath anyone that would pursue him. I’m tired of seeing my peers and myself being vilified as some huge greedy conspirators that want to get everyone sick so that we make cash. News flash: you don’t make money in research, even in pharma. You do it because you’re passionate about it. There’s way more money to make from “holistic medicine” because you never have to spend resources and time to prove your claims!
What happened with her and the billionaire guy?
He realized that even though she was a supermodel, she was also over 50.
Eh, I don’t know, just guessing.
This woman is a vile, egotistical pos who admitted to using Rhino horn powder to stay youthful. She tried walking it back when people and wildlife organizations were appalled, but it’s out there.
She said she misspoke! How do you accidentally say you use Rhino horn powder? She’s the Trump of supermodels!
She should have been prosecuted for that. Stupid, horrible woman. I’ve despised her ever since.
She did a bizarre interview years ago in a UK paper days after she split up from the father of her sons.
In it she claimed she was ‘in a relationship’ with her children and she was so vile the journalist actually submitted the article with her own comments- she said she’d never met someone so horrible! It was hilarious.
She was also know for doing school runs/sportsdays etc wearing sking tight leather trousers or skimpy dresses and generally traumatising her sons.
But this is a new low.
as someone who works in clinical R&D, Wakefield violated not only his Hippocratic Oath & committing malpractice, he also committed egregious violations of a multitude of regulations and practices governing research on human subjects. Additionally, the studies were not only poorly designed, when audited, it was made clear there was no source documentation to substantiate a very large amount of his reported data (in other words, he created & falsified it).
Of course, in her mind, he’s a brilliant physician & researcher because he believes the same things she does – which proves his clinical judgment is about as good as that of his uneducated GF whose decision making process eschews utilizing any actual data
He is an unemployed ugly man. What is the appeal?
Wakefield should be charged for manslaughter for each and every person who has died because of his quackery.
I don’t care a lot – but I care more than I thought that I now know she’s an idiot.
And I never liked her Friends stint.