The Somali-born beauty, who is married to musician David Bowie, said she lied and said she was 19.
"I was under 18, and to leave Kenya to come to the United States, to get a passport, you had to be 18," she told the New York magazine.
"So I lied and said I was 19 to get the passport, because (otherwise) I had to have permission from my parents, and my parents would never have let me come."
"I didn't tell anybody, but I thought I'd see it, feel it. You know how they found out? I was in Newsweek a week later. It's the only magazine my father reads, and the next thing, he's reading, and there's a picture of me in New York, (saying,) 'She's the hottest model now.'
"I broke the law! But nobody can touch me now, I'm 60 years old, it's too late. The time has passed.
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