Nearly six years after the death of her estranged husband, The Cars frontman Ric Ocasek, Paulina Porizkova has opened up about their complicated relationship and the heartbreak she endured following his passing.
On Monday, the Czech-born supermodel, 60, shared a rare and intimate photo of herself embracing Ocasek. Alongside it, she reflected on the "selfish kind of love" that defined their 27-year marriage before they separated in 2017.
“Even though he was 21 years older, and in many ways filled in for my parents during our 35 years, it was I who was sharply protective of HIM,” she wrote on Instagram to her 1.3 million followers.
![Paulina Porzikova and Ric Ocasek attend the first annual Art Students League Of NY [STartUP] Gala on May 11, 2018 in New York City.](https://www.hola.com/us/horizon/original_aspect_ratio/987b2db013d3-new-york-ny-paulina-porzikova-and-ric-ocasek-attend-the-first-annual-art-student.jpg)
© Taylor HillPaulina went on to describe her deep desire to heal Ocasek’s “little scared boy” within him, the vulnerable side he shielded even from her. She confessed, “I wanted to help him. I wanted to mend him. I wanted to heal the little scared boy in his heart who he was so intent on protecting that he armored up against even me.”
The model-writer also revealed the different emotional needs that underpinned their bond. She longed “to be loved by someone who resembled my parents,” while Ric sought “to be adored by someone of public value... who would make him look good.”
“It was selfish kind of love for both of us. But it worked beautifully for a long time,” she added, likening their relationship to “childhood scars being placed in such a way on our bodies, that when we embraced, they fit perfectly.”
© Gary GershoffTheir love story:
Paulina met Ric Ocasek in 1984 at age 19, when he cast her in the music video for The Cars' hit “Drive.” At the time, Ric was still married to his second wife, Suzanne LaPointe, but the couple divorced four years later. Ric and Paulina married in 1989, when she was 24 and he was 45, eventually having two sons together, Jonathan and Oliver.
In a 2021 interview on The Conversation with Amanda de Cadenet, Paulina revealed how she adapted to Ric’s wishes early in their relationship. “He took me under his wing, he told me what to wear, he told me what to do,” she said.
© Monica Schipper“I conformed to his wishes because not doing so would risk losing his love, and his love was more important to me than any career or any friends or anything I wanted to read or do.”
She admitted that the marriage began to falter when she stopped complying with his demands. “And when I no longer did, that's when things started going not so well.”
A 'heart-breaking' discovery:
Ric Ocasek died suddenly of natural causes on September 15, 2019, at age 75, two weeks after lung cancer surgery. Paulina was devastated to discover, just weeks after his death, that she had been cut out of his will entirely. “The fact that he wanted me to get nothing, that was shocking [and] heartbreaking,” she said.
“It just completely blew up my world and everything I knew. It's a betrayal. It's a betrayal of my trust and my love and everything I put into him for years and years and years. And I have no way of knowing what possessed him to do this.”
© D DipasupilThe rocker’s two eldest sons from his first marriage, Chris and Adam, were also disinherited. However, Ric did leave an inheritance to Paulina and his two sons with her, Jonathan and Oliver. In 2021, Paulina reached a settlement with the estate under New York state law, entitling her to one-third of the fortune, though the exact sum was not disclosed.
Paulina believes Ric’s lawyers influenced the change to the will shortly before his death. “I hope it wasn't really his choice,” she said. “I hope that he went and did it without actually intending to hurt me, but I don't know.” She suspects Ric “would have fixed it if he had lived.”
What happened?
In a heartbreaking 2022 appearance on Red Table Talk with Jada Pinkett Smith, Paulina recounted the moment she found Ric dead in their Gramercy Park home. Despite being separated, they still lived together at the time.
© Evan Agostini“He had surgery because they'd found stage 0 lung cancer,” she said, explaining the initial optimism about his recovery. “Two weeks [later], he was walking around, he was starting to feel much better, he was sleeping better.” The night before his death, Ric told her, “I'm feeling kinda tired.”
The next morning, noticing he had not gotten up, Paulina brought him coffee around 11 a.m. “He just looked like he was sleeping. I set the coffee down next to him and that's when I saw his face. I saw his eyes — and they didn't look like eyes anymore.” The day after his death, Paulina learned that Ric had changed his will, accusing her of having “abandoned” him.
Paulina's new life chapter:
Since Ric’s death, Paulina has been candid about her grief, revealing in interviews and her 2025 memoir No Filter: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful the intense pain she endured, including moments when she “wanted to die.”
© Ron Galella“It's not even so much that I thought about how to kill myself or when to kill myself – it was just that feeling of, 'I just don't know how to go on. I can't do this anymore… I just want to go away,'” she shared with Page Six.
In recent years, Paulina has moved forward with new relationships. After a brief romance in 2021 with West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin, she began dating Emmy-winning sitcom producer and director Jeff Greenstein in 2023. She announced their engagement in July 2025.
