by Dr. Laura Wilhelm, LauraWil Intercultural
Margaret Gardiner has spent much of her life in and around the world of beauty. A native of South Africa, she was crowned Miss Universe in 1978 at the age of eighteen and has modeled at such prestigious events as Paris Fashion Week.
Now residing in Los Angeles, Margaret is the longtime Fashion Editor for the Golden Globes who has worked with A-list celebrities from Angelina Jolie to Zendaya. She holds a BS in psychology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina and is married to Dr. André Nel, a Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and Public Health at UCLA.
Margaret has written, directed, and edited segments for television magazine programs and has also written pieces for key publications such as Mademoiselle, Marie Claire, and People. Newspapers include The Sunday Times, The Weekend Artus and Rapport.
Her new book Damaged Beauty: Joey Superstar came out on February 10th, 2025. Set in New York City during the excesses of the 1980s, the adults only redemption tale encapsulates the sometimes-bitter life lessons the author has learned from the beauty world.
At age 27, superstar model Joey Brinkley is already past her prime. Her relationships with friends and lovers of both sexes leave her unsatisfied, and traumas from the past have put her in a mental health center and therapy. Can Joey reclaim the beautiful self she barely remembers, rewrite her false narrative, and move forward into a brighter future?
Exotic settings and sensuous prose distinguish this debut novel written by one who has clearly seen it all. Damaged Beauty: Joey Superstar is the first book in a planned trilogy about broken people in the beauty industry who try to put themselves back together. The series should take its place next to model tell-alls such as Kathy Ireland’s The Fashion Jungle.
Margaret Gardiner’s online interview further illuminates her literary endeavors.
1. You spoke about your writing even as a young woman at the 1978 Miss Universe pageant. Has it always been a passion for you?
I’ve always read. As a young girl growing up in Africa, there was a British author named Enid Blyton who wrote a series of books with female heroines or where girls had equal starring roles– Famous Five, Secret Seven, Mallory Towers. I liked Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women about four girls since I came from a family of three girls. Around 13, I decided to read the Bible from cover to cover. I know. But I did. That led to poetry. There’s a poem I can recite by heart that got published before I got invited to model. So. Yes. Books have been my window into the world.
2. Who are some of your main literary influences?
F. Scott Fitzgerald. Raymond Carver. Ernest Hemingway. Jay McInerney.
3. What is it about beauty that causes it to become damaged? How is this manifested in your book?
Beauty, especially in America, is this thing that imbues attention. Like a talisman. It’s not like that so much in Africa. There, it’s more like an accident of birth. I think beauty has cachet here. It’s one of the aphrodisiacs of the world. Power. Money. Ability. Beauty. People want it, want to own it, control it, and if they cannot do those things, they don’t mind damaging it.
Not necessarily on purpose. Showing up the weaknesses of beautiful people can be an art form, to placate the lust for it and to comfort those who envy it. In the book we peek behind the proscenium at some of the things that happen on the road to fame. People have this unconscious projection that life is easier if you are beautiful, if your thighs are smaller, if your legs are longer. That the cachet leverages the world beyond perception/projection to actuality.
Beauty is thought to be Teflon. You don’t get cut. You don’t bleed. You don’t feel. People can say what they like to you, about you and take what they need from you. That’s true of every aspect of those climbing any ladder, not just beautiful people, but because modeling/acting often starts with a very young girl unprepared for those less scrupulous. The beauty of youth and innocence –not merely physical beauty– can get damaged.
Of course, Joey gets damaged in a different way and starts off wounded. I’ve always found the most beautiful people are those who have a huge heart.
4. Who is your ideal reader for the DAMAGED BEAUTY series, and why?
Women generally. Let me start macro. Research shows that women in board rooms speak, and it often has to be echoed or picked up by another to be heard. Sometimes a man picks it up and claims it as his own. Women who have been violated have to face a barrage of intrusion to be believed. Which woman has not had her outsides exploited, even a little? Which woman has not been spoken over? Which woman does not feel vulnerable to the unconscious framing of who we should be and how we should look? To be nice? Let those who answer no to each of those questions step forth so we can examine them as rare specimens. Most of us live this unspoken universal truth, so this book is for them.
It’s also for all of the women who struggle with ‘should’. Who hurt and keep quiet. Who are close to breaking and never say so. This is for anyone who has been misrepresented or made to feel less. It’s for the people who struggled during Covid with isolation and didn’t know how to heal and turned to self-damage.
My ideal reader is someone who wants to talk about the uncomfortable parts of Joey Superstar, of society, or things women do to cope. Women who want to start conversations about things they felt they couldn’t tell others. It’s for those who are desperate and alone to know, without a doubt, that they need to reach out and ask for help, learn coping tools that do not self-damage. Understand that the pound of flesh we all give in service, leaves a hole and that it is not selfish to want the hole fed.
On a micro level, it’s for the influencer who sees the lights without understanding what can happen on the rim. It’s for young adults in particular, because these lessons that are subliminal in Joey’s journey are concepts they are discovering and wrestling with themselves. That’s the damaged part we all have inside of us.Who is this book for? On a superficial level, without the deep dives, it is just a good read with mysteries and revelations. It’s a fast read — a little naughty, a little shocking, and a little fun.
5. What kinds of characters will be in your next two books?
Book Two is Damaged Beauty: The Corruption of Charlie Cross, a coming of age, fish out of water story. It deals with the oxymorons of life, and also the morons of life. Laughter. It’s about the seduction of the desire to belong, and the irony of innocence.
Charlie arrives in Europe and gets exposed to everything she has been told is bad– but is it really? We meet some of the characters who were mentioned in the first book and become protagonists in the third book. It’s a story of first love in the form of a pirate with silky hair, tight black jeans, and a mouth that is wide and succulent. It’s about brokenness revenge, and growth. It’s about losing innocence and stepping into adulthood.
As Charlie sheds the gossamer shackles of a good girl, she has to decide if she wants to compete for the love of the sinewy pirate with seductive strokes who makes her shiver and do things she could never imagine –well yes, imagine–but never believed she would. He makes her grow in ways that confuse her. She has to navigate the woman who controls the pirate with things Charlie doesn’t understand and can never offer. Who will he choose if Charlie willingly learns the ways of his world? And if she acquires that knowledge, will she still want the pirate?
The final book, Damaged Beauty: Plastic Paradise, reintroduces us to all the characters again, at a different stage of their lives, where the consequences of their choices are playing out. One of the girls from Hamburg is on the brink of movie stardom. Oscar-nominated-bad-boy Joel Gray (women are going to LOVE him) opens doors for her, wants her, but she is obsessed with a man who touches her body like he has a map of all her molten places. He hurts her and seduces her, so she is driven by one throb: to own him.
It’s written in big bold events that clash, and break. Friendships are on the line. Ambition is, too. Who will get what they want and when they do is Paradise just plastic after all?
Each book is a stand-alone story, but the same characters take central stage or supporting roles in all three books. This leads to unexpected and satisfying conclusions in the third book.
6. What other kinds of writing projects would you like to do?
I’ve got a romantic comedy I’ve been sitting on. I would also really love to do a non-fiction book for women about how society shapes us.
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