Tyra Banks says she lost a home in recent Los Angeles wildfires
By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN
(CNN) — Tyra Banks is among the thousands of people in Los Angeles who have been impacted by the still-active wildfires that have swept through the area, but she’s thankful that most of her cherished mementoes weren’t lost in the fire.
Banks, who now lives in Sydney, Australia with her partner, businessman Louis Bélanger-Martin, spoke for the first time about how she lost her LA home in the fires during an appearance on Australian morning news program “Sunrise on 7” on Sunday.
“Yes, I lost my house,” Banks said. “I haven’t really talked about it.”
The supermodel and former “America’s Next Top Model” host added that she was in Australia at a friend’s house “celebrating and just having fun” when she found out about the fires and her home, saying that, at first, “I just kept checking my phone, not for my house but just for friends and family, making sure they’re evacuating and everything.”
“Then I asked my partner and I said, I was like, ‘I’m seeing something here, what do you think?’” Banks said, miming her partner nodding to her that indeed, their property was in trouble. “And I just pulled it together and didn’t say anything to my friends and stayed in the moment, and we went home and we cried and we had our moment.”
Banks said that while they lost their LA home, most of her most treasured belongings had been moved to her other homes, for which she is grateful.
“There were some mementoes that we lost but, yeah, it’s tough.”
Banks did not specify which fire she lost her home in, but CNN has reached out to a representative for Banks for comment.
Several wildfires broke out in the Los Angeles area earlier this month – with the Eaton Fire centered around Altadena to the northeast of Los Angeles and the Palisades Fire around the coastal Pacific Palisades in the western part of the city – scorching tens of thousands of acres and destroying thousands of structures in its wake.
As of Tuesday, 27 people have died, according to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner and fire officials.
The SoCal region is still battling ongoing fires due to severe winds near San Diego on Tuesday.
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