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The Whites welcomed son Finn to the family, and the new mother
made a resolve. “Because my parents were older, I was pretty much raised
by a nanny. I wanted to ensure that I didn’t do that.” Thus, the trio traded
life in London’s fast lane for the spaciousness and privacy of LA. Upon
arrival, Normandie realized that the fast lane had followed her. “There
were a lot of industry parties, and a lot of parties at my house. I saw
that this was going to be the same as in London.” She became reclusive,
uneasy, feeling that, “Something was wrong. Deep in my intuition, in my
soul, something wasn’t jiving right.”
After a Tatler Magazine shoot at The Beverly Hills Hotel, Normandie
returned home in full hair, make-up, and wardrobe. As she reached her
gate, “I tripped!” she squeaks. “Because my hands were full, I couldn’t
put them down. So, I fell into a big metal drainpipe. I broke my nose and
eye sockets. At that moment, my mask was broken. The mask of illusion.
My face, which is what I had traded on, which had been my sense of self
with this external life - the beacon of that was my face. And my face was
gone. I remember feeling the blood coming out of my eyes, and what was
my nose. That earth-shattering sound when I heard my face break, it was
like everything inside of me broke. It was done.”
The confidante she most counted on couldn’t handle the gushing
blood, and her husband was unreachable. So, Normandie made her way
to Cedars-Sinai... alone.... for the first time in years. New to the coun-
try and without insurance, the ER intake nurse was reticent to tend to
her. Normandie screamed, “Please help me! I’m somebody’s daughter!
I’m somebody’s mother!” But the bureaucratic medical staff bellowed,
“Nope. Back of the line!” She asserts, “Everything that could go wrong,
did. I didn’t have a bridge in my nose, they didn’t get me a plastic surgeon.
They ended up gluing the gravel from the fall into my nose, which then
got infected.”
The pretty porcelain façade of Normandie Keith White crumbled, and
with it her marriage, modeling career, and financial footing. Some mem-
bers of the jetset that she called “friends” faded out. Her toddler son was
so scared of her stitches and bruises that he asked her to wear a costume
Ironman mask.
Normandie’s soul-sister Sadie Turner came to live in her guesthouse atop
La Brea in the Hollywood Hills. At 3:30 am Sadie would scurry down the
driveway. Normandie recalls, “I thought that maybe she was going party-
ing so I waddled over in my Ironman mask to ask if she was ok.” Sadie