At the age of nine, she began going to modeling auditions, and was signed by Prima modeling agency. At eleven, Jovovich was noticed by the photographer Richard Avedon. Avedon was head of marketing at Revlon at the time, and chose Jovovich to appear with models Alexa Singer and Sandra Zatezalo in Revlon’s “Most Unforgettable Women in the World” advertisements.
In 1987, photographers Gene Lemuel and Peter Duke took polaroids of the twelve year old Jovovich, and Lemuel later showed the photographs to Herb Ritts. Impressed, Ritts re-shot the polaroids for the October 1987, cover of the Italian fashion magazine Lei; this was the first of her many cover shoots. In 1988, she made her first professional model contract. Jovovich was among other models who gained controversy for partaking in the industry at a young age












