From a very young age she knew the

glamor of modeling

.

At 26, she had already been on the cover of multiple magazines and paraded on catwalks in Europe and the United States.

With a career on the rise, Brazilian

Eloisa Fontes

went from the New York jet set to living in a favela in Rio de Janeiro.

The model, reported as

missing a year ago

, was found this week by the police in the streets of Cantagalo, a favela south of the "Cidade Maravilhosa."

She was half-naked and

completely disoriented

.

The young model is one of the countless cases of disappeared that the police authorities of Rio de Janeiro deal with every day, a task where

the street dwellers

are her best allies.

It was they who saw her wandering the streets of the favela wearing only pants and flip-flops.

They

alerted the police

to the dangers she could face and thanks to their call, Fontes was located a day later.

Until that moment, the young woman was just another citizen with an obvious problem, but when they corroborated her identity, the agents discovered that

she was a successful model

reported missing a year ago.

Of the shocking woman who stood out in campaigns for Dolce & Gabbana and Giorgio Armani, and who starred on the

covers of fashion magazines such

as Glamor and Elle, a fearful and disoriented young woman remained.

This is not the first time this has happened to Fontes.

It had already happened to him in New York, where

he disappeared for five days

and then appeared in a city located 30 minutes by train from Manhattan.

There have also been other disappearances after his arrival in Brazil.

In Rio, she had already

been interned in other institutions

after wandering through some of the most dangerous favelas in the city such as Ciudad de Dios or Jacarezinho.

He even lived

for a time with a relative in Minas Gerais

, but fled and returned to the "wonderful city".

"We rescued her, put clothes on her and identified her. She was very disoriented, with very tangled information. We got her to give us her name and from there, with the intelligence core of our program, we

located her mother

in Alagoas (northeast)" , Antonio Carlos dos Santos, Undersecretary of Strategic Actions of the Government of Rio, told Efe.

The young woman was confined, under his approval, in a

psychiatric institution of the municipality

, but is going to be transferred to a private hospital.

A friend of the family has taken responsibility for the situation while the model's mother manages to travel to Rio de Janeiro.

The jump to the international catwalks

Eloisa Fontes left her home at 17 after winning a contest.

At that age, he left his seven siblings and his mother, in Piranhas, a small and humble municipality in the state of Alagoas.

He left with the

hope of succeeding on the

international

catwalks

and he did it

.

From Sao Paulo, the financial center of Brazil and one of the most important cities in the world of fashion, she jumped onto the catwalks in Europe and the United States after marrying Andre Birleanu, a Russian model and producer

15 years older than her

and with whom she had a daughter who is in the custody of the father.

France, Italy, Germany, Romania and New York were some of the destinations that the young Brazilian met thanks to modeling, a world that also allowed her to rub shoulders with people from the

international

Jet-set such

as Paul McCartney

, whom she met at a fashion show. the former Beatle's daughter, Stella McCartney.

With seven years of professional career, her last international job was in New York, hired by an American agency.

It was there that the first symptom of his problem was registered and since then his life took a 180 degree turn.

The future

Experts consulted by Efe pointed out that the future of the model in the short term is uncertain.

Without knowing their situation in detail, they agree that psychological problems take time and that the

minimum treatment

will require months.

Despite the relapses she had during the last year, Fontes wanted to continue modeling.

In March, when she was already living in Rio de Janeiro, she contacted the Sao Paulo-based firm JOY model looking for work.

After sending an email with photographs of her portfolio, her beauty

impacted

the company

executives

who later spoke with her by video call.

"She is a beautiful woman, that is why we confirmed our interest in representing her in the Brazilian market and having her on our website and in our cast. Unfortunately,

we did not have time to start

," the firm said in a note, in which it wished the prompt recovery of Fontes.

According to the company, as the coronavirus pandemic was beginning, the model asked them to

wait a while to start

, because it would be between New York and Germany.

He agreed to let you know when it was available.

Away from the world of catwalks

, Eloisa Fontes rests for now in a psychiatric hospital.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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