Biography

Lives in Southern California with her husband, an emergency room physician and their three children, Erik, Lily and Chloe. She enjoys being a full time mother and continues to be a Sunday schoolteacher as well.

Took voice lessons in the early 90s not only to boost her acting career but also due to the fact that she "used to not be able to order pizzas on the phone. "They'd say 'we need to speak to your mom or dad.'" She revealed in a 1993 interview.

She began modeling at age 17 and was cover model for the most Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues. She left modeling for lifestyle designing, establishing the Kathy Ireland Worldwide brand, when she realized the fashion wear she modeled was unsuitable for most buyers.

Her KIWW brand passed the billion dollar a year retail sales mark in its first decade. Her initial venture was her design and manufacture of socks (her company having recently celebrated the sale of its 100,000,000th pair) and quickly expanded to furniture, lighting, flooring, kitchenware, carpeting, window treatments, landscaping accessories, watches, tableware and bedding, as well as her early-established success in apparel and her partnership with Dame Elizabeth Taylor, for whose "House of Taylor Jewelry", Ireland designs the accessibly-priced jewelry product.

She is the only woman in INC. Magazine's list of the top five celebrity entrepreneurs, which included Paul Newman, Magic Johnson and Francis Ford Coppola.

It is a hard thing to quit. It's good money for not too much hard work. It allows me to be selective about the acting parts I take. (on modeling)

Whether I'm a sex symbol or not isn't the kind of thing I think about too much. I just go in, do my job, get the money and go home. Whatever people think about me is up to them.

Many of the parts I'm offered, even at this point in my career, are stupid bimbo roles that require nudity. I've been dealing with the nudity thing throughout my modeling career. They take one look at me and they expect me to take my clothes off. Some people don't have a problem with nudity. I do, so I've turned down quite a few scripts. (from a 1992 interview)

Being a model first opened some doors and closed some others. For the most part, it has been a positive transition. I'm being given a chance to prove myself because they know who I am. But coming from a modeling background, you also bring along the mindless bimbo baggage that all models have attached to them and because of that you have to work that much harder. I also have to be a bit more careful about the choices I make. A complete unknown could come along, do a string of B movies and work her way up without calling any attention to herself. I can't do that.

One of the positives that I've experienced in the fashion industry is more inclusion, and I love that. To see that reflected physically in the modeling industry, I think it's beautiful and it's encouraging and it's needed