In the unforgettable era of MySpace and indie sleaze, one woman’s face was everywhere: Agyness Deyn.
The British supermodel’s achingly hip, androgynous look defined the early aughts — and meant she was soon dating rock stars, hanging out with A-listers and getting paid by huge fashion labels to make their clothes look effortlessly cool.
And then … she stopped. In 2012, Deyn became a little disillusioned by the fashion industry and decided to make a move into acting. Now? She’s a 42-year-old mom of three who enjoys a quiet life, largely out of the spotlight in New York City with her second husband, Joel McAndrew. Yup, the woman once heralded as “the next Kate Moss” even drives a minivan — and she wouldn’t want it any other way.
So, how did she get here? Deyn, whose birth name is Laura Hollins — she changed it when she started out in fashion to stand out in a sea of Lauras — was born to humble beginnings outside Manchester in the north of England. Her parents, who divorced when she was 12, were a mailman and a nurse, but Deyn wanted more.
“I didn’t really know what I wanted to do when I was a girl, but it was clear that something was stewing,” she told The Independent in 2012. “I was very sporty — I swam competitively — and I loved music, the arts, having a creative outlet.”
In 2023, she also told Dazed, “I feel like from 17 — or even younger actually, more like 13 — I had a dream that I was going to leave and explore the world.”
And so she did. At 18, she headed south to London to hang out with her childhood friend, the fashion designer Henry Holland, and was soon spotted by a model scout.
“I was never really that interested in fashion growing up,” she told The Talks in 2013. “It wasn’t something that I always wanted to do. I was just spotted while I was out shopping in London, looking like a boy, and everything just happened to me.”
At first, Deyn was just a regular, jobbing model picking up work here and there, but when she signed with a new agent in New York, suddenly she was hot property, catching the attention of brands like Burberry, Mulberry and Vivienne Westwood. Her signature look — dark brows, bleached hair, general aura of “I don’t care” — upped the edgy credentials of these long-established fashion brands and made her a true icon. “The Agyness” — her short, choppy, pixie cut — was one of the most sought-after and disastrously imitated hairstyles of the era, even if you have long since untagged the photos to prove it.
“I enjoyed modelling,” she told The Independent in 2012. “Oh, God, I loved it. Being 18 years old, from Manchester and suddenly having this new world to explore — being able to travel, meet all these different people and immerse myself in all these different cultures — was just so much fun.”
She had a blast and was soon a regular fixture on the international celebrity scene, partying up a storm everywhere from basement clubs in East London to the VIP area at Coachella. In 2008, she met The Strokes’ Albert Hammond Jr. at an awards ceremony, and they rapidly fell in love.
“From the first date I went on with her it felt like we knew each other,” he told The Guardian in 2009. “Even when I met her parents it was as though I had known them before. It was beautifully strange.”
Despite their intense feelings — Hammond Jr. even went on record saying he wanted kids with Deyn — and appearing in a Valentine’s shoot together for i-D magazine, they split after less than a year together. (New York Magazine even ran an obituary for the couple: “The cause of death was by mutual agreement, and sources say the Relationship already has been reincarnated as the Friendship.”)
Deyn carried on dating rock stars until she quit modeling. “It’s great to branch out,” she told The Independent in 2012. “I suppose I have stopped modeling officially. I’ve not done any for a good long while now. I think it was about four years ago when my feelings were changing towards the industry. I didn’t hate it, but I was yearning to do something different. I was on a gradient. It was a gradual thing.”
She also told Interview in 2013 that she felt she had “lost a spunk” for modeling. “I couldn’t fake it,” she said. “It was like, ‘I have to figure this out because I can’t do it.’ I can’t do modeling disconnected. And I thought, ‘What do I like? What do I love about modeling?’ And what I love is that it’s such a creative process, with a bunch of people, and I wanted that more, which is how the acting thing came about.”
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While lots of models declare ambitions to act, this was different — Deyn was actually good at it. She got rave reviews for her stage work and appeared in some small but well-received indie movies (Electricity, Sunset Song). And she reveled in this new life stage.
“For modeling, you have to be such a strong person in a way — or seen to be a strong person, do you know what I mean?” she told The Guardian in 2012. “But in acting you have to get in touch with all the vulnerability that you carry. When I started doing little bits of acting I was like, this is what I’m supposed to be doing, you know? Going to this place where there’s this fulfilment in kind of like letting go, and also that part of really getting in touch with yourself, to be able to understand a different character, and then portray that to whoever’s watching it, and to be able to penetrate them in a way that touches them.”
Somewhere along the way, she met actor Giovanni Ribisi — but nobody clocked they were together until they became husband and wife in 2012, with Ribisi’s agent confirming they had “quietly married in Los Angeles.” While lining up at the registrar’s office, they were observed “passionately kissing” and told a local journalist from the Crown City News that they had been dating for a while.
“I always keep my cards close to my chest,” she told The Independent a few months later. “I live in Los Angeles these days, and I’m a very private person. That’s just the way I roll. My husband is as well. We don’t socialize on that [celebrity] level, but in terms of recognition, it does feel really nice when a young girl tells me that I’ve inspired her in some way.”
In 2015, the couple split, citing irreconcilable differences in their divorce, and they divided their assets (they owned several homes together). By the following year, Deyn had moved on — and this time, her man wasn’t a rock star or Hollywood actor but a hedge fund guy: McAndrew.
“I always thought that I was in love, but then when I was actually in love I realized that it was different to what I thought it was,” she told Vogue in 2024. “And the difference was that I felt fully comfortable to be myself in every single facet and capacity.”
Deyn and McAndrew got married in Brooklyn, New York, in summer 2016, and Deyn threw herself into a chiller, low-key life. In 2018, she told Sunday Times Style, “Joel’s such a dream,” saying she was happiest “seeing family and friends and just being a wife and cook.”
Despite her newfound love of domesticity, Deyn was still getting acting work too. As well as a couple more indie films (The Titan and Her Smell), she picked up her biggest role yet in a BBC crime drama, Hard Sun, which came in 2017. Unfortunately, despite a warm reception, the show was axed after one season.
But Deyn had a new focus anyway: starting a family. Her first baby was born in December 2018, followed by two more. In between babies, she made occasional catwalk cameos, representing her beloved Burberry at London Fashion Week in 2019 alongside Kendall Jenner and the Hadids.
But then came the pandemic, when Deyn and McAndrew hunkered down in upstate New York with their growing brood. “So a lot has changed,” she told Dazed in 2023. “But I think becoming a mother, plus COVID, puts a lot of things into perspective. I try to live in the moment and not plan too much for the future where I can help it. It’s about waking up, experiencing joy where you can. “
Despite her hedonistic, star-studded past, Deyn’s quiet life suited her. “I suppose I’ve never really had a lifestyle that needs upkeep,” she told The Guardian. “I don’t get cabs; I’m on the tube with my Oyster [travel] card. I’ve never really changed my lifestyle.”
In fact, perhaps when she was modeling, she was acting all along — as a party girl and an extrovert. “Personally, I’ve always been quite introverted,” she revealed to Sunday Times Style. “It was exhausting to be expected to be that extroverted all the time. I think people think being introverted is a bad thing, but it’s actually quite a powerful way of existing. I think I had just got to the point where I wanted to embrace who I was.”
That version of Deyn has a more low-key personal style too. “I suppose I’ve mellowed out a bit in that way,” she said. “I won’t be shaving my head again any time soon. I won’t be dyeing it blue or pink either.”
Despite all the glamour and privilege her iconic face brought her way, Deyn has stayed grounded, telling Vogue in 2024, “My grandad always said, ‘It doesn’t matter if it’s the queen or the cleaner, treat everyone the same.’”
It’s clear she’s grateful for so many good times but just as grateful that she now gets to pick and choose her work and enjoy plenty of downtime with the people she loves, including old friends like Holland and her sister, Emily, a wellness coach also based in New York.
Now, when Deyn takes modeling work, there’s a sense of occasion and nostalgia — and she loves impressing her young kids, who are shocked to see this side of their Haribo-munching, Honda-driving mom. When she made a surprise cameo for Burberry at London Fashion Week in 2024, she said her kids went wild watching the livestream from their home, shouting, “Go mummy!” She told Vogue, “Their view of what I do keeps it so light and delightful. I carry that with me — that sense of, ‘What am I doing?’ Having fun, that’s what I’m doing.”
Deyn’s Instagram page — and she only has 9,000 followers — is sparsely populated and mostly all about the babies.
In May 2025, she posted a carousel of photos of her kids captioned with the words, “Dear God, how did you know that each little person You entrusted to me would be my refiner, my inspiration, my teacher, my healer. That the highs would be high and the lows would be low.”
Deyn herself still looks cool — with her striking features, she always will — but “The Agyness” hairstyle is long gone. If you were just scrolling by, you’d think she was any other mom, not one of the most iconic faces of early ’00s fashion and pop culture.
