Bar Refaeli

Bar Refaeli

Bar Refaeli was born in Hod HaSharon, Israel on 4 June 1985. Refaeli was born into a secular Jewish family,. Her parents, Rafael and Tzipi, own a horse ranch. Her parents were born in Israel, and her grandparents came from Italy, Lithuania, and Poland. Her mother was a successful model in the 1970s under her maiden name, Tzipi Levine. Refaeli has three brothers.

She is an Israeli fashion model. She was the cover model of the 2009 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and was voted #1 on Maxim magazine's Hot 100 list of 2012.

In 2011 Refaeli and Dudi Balsar, an attorney and former male model, set up an E-commerce company called Under.me to sell designer underwear. By November 2011, the company had raised $1 million in venture capital funds

Refaeli was previously linked to Baywatch actor David Charvet and Uri El-Natan, Refaeli began a relationship with American actor Leonardo DiCaprio in November 2005 after meeting him at a party in Las Vegas thrown for members ofU2. In the course of their trip to Israel in March 2007, the couple met with Israeli president Shimon Peres and visited Refaeli's hometown of Hod HaSharon. The relationship ended in June 2009. Numerous reports, however, indicate that, as of early 2010, the romance may have been rekindled. In May 2011 it was reported that the couple had ended their romantic relationship, although they remain friends.

Her relationship with DiCaprio caused one nationalist Israeli organization to send her a letter, later leaked to the press, in which she was asked, for the sake of "future generations of Jews", not to marry a "non-Jew", a request similar to the one made to Israeli 1998 Miss World winner Linor Abargil, a few years previously.

Refaeli told L'Isha magazine that she prefers to keep a lower profile, but that she is out with DiCaprio much of the time. "I am there for him and I am at all the events", she says. "I just don't walk in hand-in-hand with him. I don't see any reason. I don't need to strike poses with him in front of the cameras. No one needs to know how we kiss".