Arizona Muse — one of the world’s top models and a fave of Vogue’s Anna Wintour — is being accused by her son’s father, Manuel Quintana, of battling booze and pills and denying access to their son, Nikko, 4.
A blog by Quintana purports to reveal the truth behind their relationship, which began in 2006 — when he worked at a New Mexico J.Crew and she was a high school senior — before her career took off with Peter Lindbergh shoots and campaigns for Louis Vuitton, Chloe, Prada and YSL.
“Arizona had a breakdown [in] September 2011,” Quintana alleges on his blog “My Life . . . As I See It.” “She called me desperately, pleading for help. At that time, Nikko had three nannies because she was . . . trotting him along from country to country with her. She begged me to rush to NY so I could care for my son full time.”
But Quintana’s blog further claims that he learned Muse had “a major problem with alcohol, painkillers and amphetamines . . . to help her stay thin, awake during long days of shooting, and still be able to sleep.”
He says she “skipped two seasons walking the runway because she was . . . so out of it most of the time. We decided to move to London [in] June 2012, to hopefully help change her patterns.”
The portrayal sharply contrasts with public accounts. In a February 2011 editor’s letter, Wintour exclaimed, “When I look at Arizona, I see shades of Linda Evangelista and Natalia Vodianova, but most of all, I see her, a gorgeous, smart grown-up.” Muse speaks of the challenges of being a model mom in a UK profile this month: “I had a child and then became established, which I would not recommend doing! I highly recommend getting your career established first and then having children.”
On his blog, Quintana says Muse, now 24, was “taking care of my expenses,” but she pulled the funds and took their son this year after a falling-out. “A lot of you out there consider me a slime ball . . . for airing our ‘dirty laundry,’ ” he posted. “I’ll always care about her, she’s my son’s mother,” he said.
A rep at Muse’s agency didn’t get back to us.