How Kate Moss bewitched serial womaniser Lucian Freud when she posed for THAT naked painting – as a biopic is set to explore their mysterious friendship

An era-defining painter and an iconic supermodel conceived one of the noughties’ most celebrated pieces of art – but how did Kate Moss and Lucian Freud come to cross paths?

New biopic Moss & Freud, set to hit screens in the UK this year, will explore the unlikely bond between Kate Moss and Lucian Freud, who together curated the masterpiece in 2002.

Titled Naked Portrait 2002, the distinguished artwork captured a nude, 28-year-old Kate Moss while she was pregnant with her daughter, Lila Grace, who she welcomed with now ex-boyfriend Jefferson Hack. 

Sexy, true and raw, the image, which was painted by Lucian – then 80 and at the time 52 years older than Kate – showcased the model in a way she’d never been seen before. 

The result was groundbreaking, with the painting fetching a whopping £3.5 million at an auction years later.

Lucian and Kate’s time together established a one-of-a-kind friendship, and the model would later describe him as ‘the most interesting person’ she’d ever met. So fierce was their bond, prying eyes have long questioned whether they shared something more than just friendship.

The German-born painter – also famed for his modern and selfie-esque painting of The Queen in 2001 – passed away aged 88 over a decade ago. Moss & Freud, aims to explore his life and art, and focuses strongly on how the 90s superstar came to be his beloved muse.

So close to her heart is the project that Kate will serve as executive producer, with British actress Ellie Bamber, 27, playing the iconic supermodel and 86-year old Emmy winner, Derek Jacobi, starring as Lucian Freud.

Kate’s arrival on the scene in the early 90s signified a new era of models, joining the likes of Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Linda Evangelista as some of the biggest names in the industry.

Meanwhile Lucian Michael Freud, born in 1922 in Berlin, Germany, was by then a renowned painter and draughtsman who specialised in figurative art; his work on human subjects such as friends, family and lovers earned him the reputation as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. 

Lucian moved to London with his parents Ernst and Lucie Freud in 1933 after Hitler and the Nazis rose to power in Germany. 

The son of Jewish architect Ernst L. Freud and the grandson of historic psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, he was known for his expressionism and attention to detail – with his art often taking extended periods to complete.

His life was a stark contrast to the glittering fast-paced bubble inhabited by Moss, whose apparent brand as a size zero, hedonistic party lover couldn’t afford her the time to slow down – well that is perhaps until she became pregnant with her first and only child.

Though Lucian once painted the late Queen Elizabeth – recognised by several critics as the finest royal portrait of the century – the extraordinary painter often shied away from celebrity art.

His choice to decline requests from Princess Diana, Tony Blair and Madonna was perhaps the surest evidence of that – but an electric spark between him and one of the highest-grossing supermodels of all time changed that.

Lucian’s reputation as a phenomenal artist was rivalled only by his image as a seducing lothario who bedded his artistic subjects one by one.

Throughout the course of his life, Lucian acknowledged 14 children by six different women – although some have estimated that he may have fathered as many as 40. 

His appetite for younger women was revealed in an affair with journalist Emily Bearn, who at age 27, began seeing the 79-year-old in the early 2000s.

Lucian often paid late-night visits to his younger lover at a £500,000 home in West London – that it’s thought he paid for.

In fact, close friend Geordie Greig once referred to him as the ‘genius with 500 lovers’, having allegedly been told by a former flame: ‘He [Lucian] did a lot of mad chasing of women’.

Speaking in the 1970s, the source added: ‘[He was] climbing up drainpipes and climbing in high windows of houses of women he wanted to see, hanging from balconies by his fingertips.’

Perhaps Lucian’s attraction to Kate was her sex appeal. But in fact it was the model who reached out to the painter in the most public of forums. 

In an interview with style magazine, Dazed and Confused, edited at the time by her lover Jefferson Hack, Kate said Lucian was one of her heroes.

‘I’d really like to meet Lucian Freud,’ she said. ‘I heard he was really cool. Like, for 80 years old, he’s really hip and cool apparently’.

Her sweet words would set history in motion and change both of their lives forever. 

As the millennium dawned, the painter grew consumed by numerous commissions and projects. But through it all he couldn’t shake off one particular petition.

He took to his daughter Bella to enquire if indeed the words printed in Kate’s interview were true. Bella Freud – a fashion designer, former assistant to Vivienne Westwood and whose clothes Kate had worn – confirmed it. From then onwards their fates were sealed.

Lucian told Geordie before his death, ‘I asked Bella if this [the interview] was true. When I heard that she had said she wanted to be painted by me, I told Bella to send her round.’

The start of their unlikely coupling developed much before she set foot in Lucian’s West London studio. His biographer recalled the two getting on ‘like a house on fire’ after meeting at a restaurant near his Kensington home.

The supermodel, who at the time was pregnant with daughter Lila, spent an increasing amount of time with her new, much older friend. 

In no rush and growing heavily pregnant, she embraced the newness of it all and continued to show up for the project, with days sometimes tumbling into nights.

The painting itself was said to have taken between six and nine months to complete, during which the two were reportedly inseparable.  

It was hardly a secret they were spending so much time together and the public soon caught on to the frivolities of the odd pairing. 

The couple enjoyed activities that could be likened to romantic dates, such as dinners in Mayfair and Kensington. 

They sometimes marked the end of the night by riding in Lucian’s classic Bentley to his studio where the painting sessions continued. 

The allure was a two-way street as Lucian once told Geordie ‘I liked her company… she was full of surprising behaviour’.

At the time the model was enthralled by Jefferson Hack, then 31 – while Lucian was seeing Emily, who became the subject of several of his nude paintings. Still, the rumour mill went into overdrive about the perceived connection between the painter and his muse.

Later fans pondered the same question but the pair did nothing to quench rumours, instead ramping up their portrait sessions to seven nights a week.

The end result was a stunning artwork that had everyone talking – a pregnant Kate Moss crossing the divide between women as mothers and sexual beings. 

The fashion model was captured completely nude as she reclined across a bed with one arm resting on a pillow, and her legs spread outwards.

The artwork was sold to an anonymous bidder for a staggering sum of £3.5 million.

Astonishing as it was, the painting was not the only thing that immortalised their unlikely friendship.

Lucian left an indelible mark on Kate when he inked two swallows on the base of her spine during one of their sessions.

Lucian learned to tattoo during his time in the British Merchant Navy. He served at sea during the Second World War where he was a merchant seaman on an Atlantic convoy in 1941. He was discharged in 1942 due to poor health.

Recalling her memory of the inking during a rare interview with the BBC in 2022, Kate said: ‘He gave me a bottle of really good Rothschild wine, and he got out his etching needle and scraped into my thigh a flock of birds which now look like varicose veins’. 

She continued: ‘But I am still probably the only living person with a Lucian Freud on my thigh’.

The mother-of-one said he originally suggested a ‘chicken upside down in a bucket’ for a design, but they settled on a more traditional image.

After the painting, Kate parted ways with Jefferson and moved on to indie hell raiser, Pete Doherty. Their explosive relationship and Pete’s drug-fuelled run-ins with the law ensured the couple were rarely out of the headlines.

Lucian also grew older, though he remained an intermittent presence in Kate’s life – he was seen arriving at a party thrown for her in 2004, where he said they enjoyed ‘20 minutes of intensive dancing’ before he left.

In 2010, whispers about the true nature of their relationship resurfaced once more when a photo emerged of the pair snuggled up under the covers at his home.

But rather than suggesting the pair shared a romantic chemistry, it instead demonstrated their platonic love for each other, especially as Lucian entered the final years of his life.

The photo – shot by Lucian’s assistant – formed part of an exhibition at the Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert gallery in London two years later. 

It had been taken while the painter recovered from a bizarre accident he’d sustained while shooting a promotional film with a zebra. The animal took fright and bolted, pulling him to the ground and dragging him across the floor. 

He was rushed to hospital, but he reportedly suffered nothing more than a groin strain.

Lucian passed aged 88 on July 20, 2011, at his London home. 

His work changed hands for staggering sums – in 2008 a life-sized nude of a voluptuous Job Centre manager set a world record for a living artist when it was sold for a whopping £17.2million at Christie’s auction house in New York.

Among his most famous subjects was Queen Elizabeth II, who posed for the painter fully clothed after extensive negotiations with Buckingham Palace. 

The colourful portrait, which the artist donated to the Queen’s collection, remains one of the most unusual and controversial depictions of the British monarch. 

Also left behind was a complex romantic life and a brood of at least 14 children.

He had an affair with Lorna Garman, a member of London’s bohemian Bloomsbury set, before later marrying her niece Kitty Garman.

Together they had two daughters, Annie and Annabel, before their marriage ended after four years. His next marriage, to Lady Caroline Blackwood, novelist, actress and one of the painter’s muses, ended after five years with no children.

With writer Bernardine Coverley he had two daughters, Bella, a fashion designer, and Esther, a novelist.

He had five children with his former pupil at the Slade School of Fine Art, Suzy Boyt; Alexander, Rose, Isobel, Susie and Kai. A son, Frank, resulted from a relationship with painter Celia Paul.

The existence of four more, Paul, Lucy, Jane and David, from a relationship with Katherine McAdam, a fashion designer who babysat his eldest children, emerged in 2004 – when Lucian was 81.

Many of the compelling details are expected to be unravelled in Moss & Freud, which dramatises how the enigmatic painter and global supermodel crossed paths.

Actress Ellie Bamber gave a hint of what’s to come when she was spotted glammed up as the supermodel in London last year.

The Serpent and Willow star could be seen wearing a plunging sequin dress as she recreated Kate’s iconic 30th birthday look and puffed on a cigarette.

The famed bash, which was held at Claridge’s hotel in 2004, took on the theme of F Scott Fitzgerald’s book, The Beautiful and Damned.

She styled herself after one of the novel’s main character’s Gloria Gilbert, wearing a blue vintage dress first worn by Britt Ekland to the 1974 premiere of The Man with the Golden Gun.

Recreating the very same look, Ellie’s hair mirrored Kate’s blonde tightly curled style she wore back in 2004.

The actress’ outfit was completed with a pair of gold pointed toe heels and a matching clutch bag.

Speaking about the project in February last year, Kate said: ‘As this is such a personal story of mine it has been essential that I be involved with James in all aspects as the project has developed.

‘I am thrilled by the recent casting and excited that the film will begin shooting soon, I cannot wait to see it’.

The movie is directed by James Luca, perhaps best known for his Academy Award-winning live action short film The Phone Call.