Alessandra Ambrosio

Alessandra Ambrosio Biography

Alessandra Corine Ambrósio was born on April 11, 1981, in Erechim, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, to Luiz Ambrósio, a gas station owner, and Lucilda Ambrósio, a homemaker. Raised in a middle-class family with a younger sister, Aline, she grew up in a small town of Italian and Polish descent. Inspired by fashion magazines, she enrolled in modeling classes at 12 and was scouted by Dilson Stein’s modeling school. At 15, she won Brazil’s Elite Model Look contest in 1996, signing with Elite Model Management and moving to São Paulo, then New York, to pursue modeling. Ambrósio is of Italian, Polish, and Portuguese descent and has lived in the U.S. for most of her life. She often credits her small-town roots for her warm, approachable persona. She is primarily known as Alessandra Ambrosio, with no widely used aliases. In the 2000s, she was dubbed “The Brazilian Bombshell” by media for her sultry beauty and Victoria’s Secret prominence.