Model Cara Delevingne ‘heartbroken’ after blaze destroys luxury LA home
Source: Instagram
Model and actress Cara Delevingne is “heartbroken” after a fire destroyed her luxury Los Angeles home.
One firefighter was taken to a hospital in fair condition with unspecified injuries, and one unidentified person from the house suffered minor smoke inhalation, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Nicholas Prange said on Friday.
Delevingne shared several Instagram stories on Saturday (British time) that seemed to refer to the fire after TMZ reported the house in the LA’s Studio City neighbourhood that was engulfed in flames before dawn belonged to her.
Prange said nearly firefighters arrived at the two-storey house to find heavy fire in the rear, which destroyed a room and spread to the attic.
Once fire crews made certain everyone was out of the house, they took a defensive position and the roof collapsed.
“The house subsequently sustained a roof collapse, as firefighters continued to apply hose streams from the exterior,” a Los Angeles Fire Department statement said.
“Ultimately, it took 94 firefighters two hours and 16 minutes to access, confine, and extinguish the flames.”
A firefighter with what appears to be one of Delevingne’s cats. Both survived the blaze. Photo: Instagram
Hours later, Delevingne shared a video that showed a street full of fire trucks with lights flashing.
“Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all the firefighters and people that have showed up to help,” another Instagram story read.
A third Instagram story showed a photo of two cats with the caption, “My heart is broken today. I cannot believe it; life can change in the blink of an eye – cherish what you have.”
On Saturday, Delevingne’s parents revealed the likely cause of the blaze.
“Electrical,” her father Charles Delevingne speculated to TMZ photographers in London.
“Power lines. It’s very windy there.”
Delevingne’s mother, Pandora said her daughter was devastated.
“She had everything in her house. Her whole life. [That was] her home, she built it, she made it, she has everything in it,” she said.
Delevingne’s representatives did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
She wasn’t in the LA residence at the time, as she is starring in a stage performance on London’s West End.
The cause of the blaze is under investigation.
Delevingne bought the 1940s mansion in 2019 for a reported $US7 million ($A10.7 million). She had updated it extensively, with a 2021 article in Architectural Digest revealing details she had included: “Walls sheathed in a Gucci wallpaper of overscaled herons; a massive snake carpet in the billiards room and a climbing-leopard carpet on the stair to the upper-floor fun house; a flock of bird sculptures by Mexican artist Sergio Bustamante; and a king’s ransom in ferns, palms, topiaries, and other houseplants.”
In a home tour, she told the publication the house was “one of my favourite places to be”, likening it to “an adult playhouse” and citing Hugh Hefner as an inspiration behind her choice of decoration.
“It’s kind of like an adult playhouse, I like to call it. I feel like the theme of this is definitely Mad Hatter’s tea party,” she said.
“But there’s jungle theme, there’s Beverly Hills hotel, there’s an old English style in here, but also, obviously, very typically LA.”
Its other features included a “David Bowie shrine”, a ball pit and a collection of Japanese puzzle boxes.
Delevingne became widely known as a fashion model in the early 2010s and later began acting, appearing in the 2016 DC Comics film Suicide Squad and director Luc Besson’s 2017 Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.
She also appeared in the Hulu series Only Murders in the Building with Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez in 2022, and on FX’s American Horror Story in 2023.
-with AAP