Amanda Lepore
| Amanda Lepore | |
|---|---|
Lepore at the Life Ball in Vienna, Austria, May 2014.
|
|
| Born |
Armand Lepore December 5, 1967 Cedar Grove, New Jersey, United States |
| Occupation |
|
| Years active | 1989–present |
| Website | amandalepore |
| Modeling information | |
| Height | 5 ft 2 in (1.57 m) |
| Hair color | Platinum blonde |
| Eye color | Brown |
Amanda Lepore (born December 5, 1967) is an American model, celebutante, singer, and performance artist. The former Club Kid has appeared in advertising for numerous companies. Lepore is also noted as a regular subject in photographer David LaChapelle's work, serving as his muse, as well as many other photographers, such as Terry Richardson and Ruben van Schalm . She participated in LaChapelle's Artists and Prostitutes 1985–2005 exhibit in New York, where she "lived" in a voyeuristic life-sized set. Lepore has also released several singles, many written by and/or recorded with Cazwell. In 2011, she released her debut studio album, I...Amanda Lepore, on Peace Bisquit.
Amanda, born Armand Lepore, grew up in the Essex County community of Cedar Grove, New Jersey. Her father was an Italian-American chemical engineer, and her mother was a German-American housewife who had schizophrenia and spent much time in mental institutions. She has one sibling, an elder brother.
Lepore later wrote: "Ever since I can first remember, I knew I was a girl. I couldn't understand why my parents were dressing me up in boys clothing. I thought they were insane." In her early teens she began making costumes for a transgender friend in exchange for female hormones. She was already isolated from her peers, and her parents soon withdrew her from public school and hired a private tutor, then took her to a psychologist who helped her obtain a prescription to begin Hormone Replacement Therapy.
At the age of 17, and through a legal loophole, Lepore married a male bookstore owner and was granted sex reassignment surgery, which procedure she underwent surgery at the age of 19, in Yonkers, New York. Lepore later left her husband and, in 1989, relocated to New York City.
...
Wikipedia