Linda Evangelista holds onto teen son for incredibly rare red carpet appearance

Linda Evangelista  was joined by her teen son on Tuesday night as the pair made a rare red carpet appearance together.

Linda and Augustin, 18, walked hand in hand at the NYC Gala for the National Breast Cancer Coalition where Linda was being honored.

One of the original supermodels, the 59-year-old – who turns 60 on May 10 – rocked a black suit and matching black button-up shirt, while her teen son looked stylish in a navy suit with a casual white tee.

Relationship with Salma Hayek 

Linda welcomed her son with ex-partner François-Henri Pinault in October 2006, months after they split. Francois-Henri began dating Salma Hayek towards the end of 2006, and in 2007 Salma gave birth to her daughter Valendtina with the businessman.

In 2011, Linda filed paperwork seeking child support from François-Henri, and Salma has become a supportive stepmom to Augustin, who is known as Augie.

In August 2021, actress Salma shared a series of photos with Augustin on Instagram, writing: “I’m so grateful to have you in my life.”

Linda and Salma have also become close, with the model joining Salma when she was honored as part of the WSJ Innovators class of 2024.

“As an actress and producer, Salma has led the charge on how Hollywood tells the stories of characters of Latino descent. She is truly a force for good—with her tenacity, compassion, and refusal to hear ‘no’ being three of my favorite things about this woman who is my friend and family,” Linda said of Salma.

Return to work

In recent years Linda has returned to the catwalk and modeling after a medical procedure left her “brutally disfigured” in 2016.

“To my followers who have wondered why I have not been working while my peers’ careers have been thriving, the reason is that I was brutally disfigured by Zeltiq’s CoolSculpting procedure which did the opposite of what it promised,” she said in a statement in 2021.

Linda – who once famously said, “I don’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day” – alleged that the procedure “increased, not decreased, my fat cells and left me permanently deformed even after undergoing two painful, unsuccessful, corrective surgeries”.

She said that it had “not only destroyed my livelihood” but that it had sent her into “a cycle of deep depression, profound sadness, and the lowest depths of self-loathing” and that she had “become a recluse”.

Linda said that after the first procedure – which freezes fat and claims up to 20 per cent reduction – she noticed bulges at her chin and thighs which then turned numb and hard.

Lawsuit

She filed a lawsuit in September suing CoolSculpting’s parent company, Zeltiq Aesthetics Inc., for $50million in damages, alleging that she had been unable to work since undergoing seven sessions from August 2015 to February 2016. 

The lawsuit was settled in July 2022, with the specific terms remaining undisclosed.