Reformed addict Jaime King posts controversial 'heroin chic' image of herself taken by the late fashion photographer Davide Sorrenti

By Fay Strang

Published: 04:11 EST, 16 July 2014 | Updated: 07:06 EST, 16 July 2014

Actress Jaime King has shared an image of herself taken by her late boyfriend Davide Sorrenti.

The snap, taken when she was just 16-years-old, shows a skinny Jaime, lying on a bed, with torn clothes surrounded with photos of famous drug casualties like Kurt Cobain, Sid Vicious, and Jerry Garcia of Grateful Dead.

At the time the picture caused controversy as it played up to the ‘heroin chic’ trend of the early nineties, a fact Jaime alludes to in the picture caption.

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Controversy: Jaime King shared a picture of herself taken by the late Davide Sorrenti - her former boyfriend

Controversy: Jaime King shared a picture of herself taken by the late Davide Sorrenti - her former boyfriend

Photographer: Davide Sorrenti, pictured here with unknown woman, was dating Jaime at the time of his death in 1997

Photographer: Davide Sorrenti, pictured here with unknown woman, was dating Jaime at the time of his death in 1997

She wrote: ‘Oh Davide, we got into so much trouble with this picture. At least we know the depth of what we were capturing. #lostart #thislifeisprecious.’

 

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The snap of his girlfriend at the time Jaime, or James, who was at the time a fashion model, was the image he became most well-known for.

Around that time Jaime, now 35, featured on the cover of The New York Times Magazine, where she admitted getting involved in drugs when she started modelling at age 14.

Jaime was recruited by Michael Flutie's Company Model Management and pursued the popular aesthetic, sniffing heroin until 1997, when Davide died.

On February 4, 1997, the photographer died of a kidney ailment, possibly caused by a combination of his illness and his excessive heroin use at his friend’s apartment in Manhattan, although autopsies were incomplete

Following the death of the 20-year-old Davide, who was the son of famous snapper Marion, James entered rehab at Hazleton Clinic and became sober. 

Happy family: Jaime is now married to Kyle Newman and has a son called James

Happy family: Jaime is now married to Kyle Newman and has a son called James

The start: Jaime, seen here backstage at Alexander McQueen in March 1996, chose modelling over high school in her home town of Omaha

The start: Jaime, seen here backstage at Alexander McQueen in March 1996, chose modelling over high school in her home town of Omaha

Jaime has said: 'When you lose someone like that, you can turn it into a tragedy and live with it for the rest of your life.  I realized I was so fortunate just to have been able to have loved him for that short time.'

'When you first go to New York after living in Omaha your whole life, you realize how sheltered you are,' she told the New York Times in 1996.

'And so I went out and I partied, and I got myself into a little trouble. I came to a point where they were getting ready to send me home. I was missing planes, I was screwing up jobs.'

However, Jaime saw sense and a light at the end of the tunnel in time.

Heroin chic: Jamie became a model in the early '90s when heroin chic was the order of the day

Heroin chic: Jamie became a model in the early '90s when heroin chic was the order of the day

'But I think every girl who comes to New York needs to go through that stage. You know why?

'Because you get to the lowest point when you're so exhausted and so done from partying . . . and you're so depressed, and that's when you make a choice whether you're gonna let yourself sink or you're gonna swim, and I decided I was gonna swim.

'And you see girls who just give up hope, and then they deteriorate. But the successful girls do not do that.'

Turned her life around: Jaime, who is close friends with Taylor Swift (L) is now happy and healthy

Turned her life around: Jaime, who is close friends with Taylor Swift (L) is now happy and healthy

Jaime is now married to Kyle Newman and the proud mother to a little boy called James Knight Newman.

Her career has seen her have roles in films including Pearl Harbor, Bulletproof Monk, Sin City and My Bloody Valentine 3D.

She currently stars as Lemon Breeland on the hugely popular CW show Hart Of Dixie,  Rachel Bilson.

TV role: Jaime stars in Hart of Dixie, alongside Cress Williams as Lavon Hayes, Wilson Bethel as Wade Kinsella, Rachel Bilson as Zoe Hart and Scott Porter as George Tucker

TV role: Jaime stars in Hart of Dixie, alongside Cress Williams as Lavon Hayes, Wilson Bethel as Wade Kinsella, Rachel Bilson as Zoe Hart and Scott Porter as George Tucker



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Posting contraversial pictures of yourself is the new fashion fad...Cant be doing with it.

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she's insufferable

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Two words you don't want to see together.. Heroin chic. There's nothing chic or cool about heroin, let's just hope all the easily influenced teenage girls that read this will realise that too

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ACTRESS? really? Ok if you say so.

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Unknown woman? That's Amy Wesson, a famous model. Daily Mail can't get a photo id right. Please stop labeling pictures of Lisa Roberts as Nancy Motes.

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This picture was rightly controversial - if an addict at 16, where was she at 15,14? She was sexually posing here and too out of it to care. This is a metaphor for the sexploitation and abuse of children by the fashion industry, and also a metaphor for paedophilia, once rife in the industry. Many of these young girls - so thrilled to be picked out - did not survive being chewed up and spat out, as Sinaed O'Connor recently tried to point out to MC. 'Heroin chic' was designed to glamorise and normalise the sexploitation of young girls and to render them dependent and amenable. The fashion industry can make even abuse fashionable. But eventually BClinton intervened (Wiki on Sorrenti) and the fashion industry duly declared its abuse as "not chic anymore". Youth and beauty are still being exploited in our consumer society...is JK merely exploiting her notorious past to promote her new show?

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Beautiful woman, lover her in Sin City

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Thankfully, never heard of this person. What an awful example she sets!

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So if she's happy and healthy, and now has a husband and a son why would she want to post that awful picture of herself.

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Doesn't make sense to me - she thinks everyone should go through that to weed out the successful models who can bounce back from those who can't?? Are the ones who don't get through it just collateral damage from survival of the fittest? Sounds very cold & harsh, I hope I'm misunderstanding.

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