Bar Refaeli
Model — born 1985
Bar Refaeli is a renowned Israeli model and an occasional actress and television personality.
Bar Refaeli is an Israeli model, television host, and actress whose late-2000s and 2010s international fashion-modeling work — including a 2009 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover — produced one of the more recognizable Israeli model profiles of her generation. She was born Bar Refaeli on June 4, 1985, in Hod HaSharon, Israel. Her father Rafael Refaeli was a horse-ranch owner, and her mother Tzipi Refaeli was a former model who managed her daughter's early career.
She began modeling at eight months old in a baby-products commercial and worked steadily through her childhood. Her 2000 signing with Israeli agencies and her late-teens international fashion bookings produced her early-career profile.
Her 2007 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue debut and her 2009 cover of that publication produced her late-2000s international fashion public profile. Her work for Victoria's Secret, Chanel, Marie Claire, GQ, and Maxim across the late 2000s and 2010s extended her commercial reach.
Her 2011 hosting of the Israeli reality show The X Factor Israel and her 2015 lead-vocal contribution to the Eurovision-affiliated Israeli broadcasts launched her Israeli television-host profile. She hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 in Tel Aviv. Her well-publicized 2005–2009 relationship with actor Leonardo DiCaprio drew significant tabloid attention. She married Israeli businessman Adi Ezra in September 2015, and the couple has three children. In 2022, she was convicted in an Israeli court of tax evasion related to undeclared income from her modeling work and received a community-service sentence.
Her name Bar derives from the Hebrew bar (meaning son, or in modern Hebrew also wild, as in untamed). Bar has been a popular Israeli unisex name across the late 20th and early 21st centuries.