A Taste of Curry

Adrianne Curry certainly knows how to make an entrance. At a sunny outdoor cafe near her home in Manhattan Beach, California, the towering brunette strides past the ladies who lunch, wearing a skintight thermal top and jeans that stop a few glorious inches below her waist. At a corner table she pops off her oversize black shades, throws down her handbag (clasped shut with a single metal handcuff) and promptly orders a sex on the beach. "Look out," she whispers with a wink and a smile. "White trash has infiltrated the land of the desperate housewives!"

Actually, Adrianne has a pedigree those fancy chicks would probably break a nail to possess. The suburban Chicago beauty was the first winner on America's Next Top Model, hosted by Tyra Banks; she followed that trick by scoring pop-icon status for hooking up with The Brady Bunch's Peter Brady (Christopher Knight) on The Surreal Life. Faster than you could say "pork chops and applesauce," the couple had a popular reality series of its own, My Fair Brady, on which cameras chronicle the pair's wacky days living together in Knight's beach pad. That show's second season is about to air on VH1.

More than anything, though, Adrianne Curry has gained a reputation for being, well, Adrianne Curry--an outspoken young woman with zero pretensions and a million opinions about sex, partying, lesbians, super-models and just about everything else we enjoy thinking about. And as this particular afternoon unfolds and Adrianne's pink cocktails kick in, she delivers on that reputation.

"I'm very strong, and I've got some wild energy, which scares some guys off," she says, sucking on an ice cube. "But if you can keep up with me, I promise you'll be in for one hell of a ride."

It has certainly been a gonzo run since Top Model. Adrianne assumed her victory on the hit UPN series would translate into instant riches, but the modeling contract she won didn't pay off quite as she expected. Says Adrianne, "The only thing I won from Top Model was, like, $300 and a one-way plane ticket to New York City, where I ended up standing in the street, going, 'Uhhh, what do I do now?' "

When the show became a sensation, Adrianne says, her contract bound her to bite her tongue. Before public appearances, her handlers would "throw all these diamonds on me and say, 'Tell everyone how rich you are!' "

From the beginning there were signs that supermodeling wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Things were weird with Tyra Banks from the get-go. "I was flown out to New York, and I'm waiting around in my hotel room," Adrianne says. "In walks this woman with natty hair, looking like just another person, but she's telling me what to do. All of a sudden it hits me: That's Tyra Banks without a wig and makeup! That made me feel instantly better because I realized everybody looks like shit in the morning."

She says she and Banks aren't on the greatest terms. "I wrote her an ignorant letter after the show was over, which I regret because it was very immature. It went something like, 'I just spent my last dollar. Fuck you!' " But Adrianne says she learned plenty from the experience. "It was a wake-up call," she says. "I realized people will lie and walk all over you for self-gain if you're not careful."

Still, the modeling jobs she's done, including ours, have helped her self-image. "Before, I was insecure with my body," she says. "But after doing this it's like, Who cares? You're walking around in front of huge groups of people, buck naked. Now I feel comfortable with that. It's the most natural thing in the world."

Speaking of natural, Adrianne says she makes the most of her genetic talents even though it means working out two to three hours a day, six days a week. "I've lost 17 pounds since starting My Fair Brady," she says, flashing her perfect abs. "The only trouble is, my tits got smaller. Does that bother me? Not at all. My body's still bangin'. If I want big tits, I'll go out and buy them like everybody else in L.A. But why would I do that? They're too perky and perfect right now to mess with."

Adrianne is way too young to remember The Brady Bunch, but she'll catch a rerun now and then, and she laughs at the guy she is currently engaged to. "I just don't get it," she says. "He was such a twerp! He was this skinny, slimy, dweeby-looking kid. I can't believe I'm attracted to him. Even now the guy's three inches shorter than I am. Sometimes I ask myself, Shouldn't I be with a man I can look up to?"

But when Adrianne and Knight met on The Surreal Life, it was sort of a perfect union. "I'm 23, and Chris is 48 but acts as if he's 23, so it couldn't be better," she says, laughing. Case in point: When Knight first met Adrianne's mom, who is around his age, he said, "I'll marry your daughter when her communication skills catch up with her bedroom skills." Mom wasn't happy. Adrianne calls it (text concluded on page 124)Adrianne Curry(continued from page 112) "one of the worst moves I've ever seen a member of the male species make."

Yet the couple is obviously doing something right. Adrianne has one theory. "The good thing about dating an older guy like Chris is that he's past the slut stage," she says. "He's screwed everything with legs twice, and now he's done. The only thing is, even though he's in great physical shape, he gets tapped out sometimes."

Meaning?

Adrianne orders another sex on the beach. "Well, there are some things I can't divulge," she says, "but our sex life is definitely not boring. If you hook up with a guy in his mid-40s who has had the same Suzy Homemaker sex his whole life, you're gonna blow his fucking mind. I'm a very imaginative girl."

Hmm. Okay. Meaning?

"I'm a freak and an exhibitionist," she says. "We get pretty elaborate and try everything--handcuffs, whatever. But even role-playing can get boring. That's why we're having Suzy Homemaker sex this week."

Those desperate housewives have mostly cleared out of the cafe, and Adrianne feels free to open up about her past.

"I used to be a major tomboy and was totally embarrassed about my looks," she says. "Back in the Kurt Cobain days I was always hiding behind flannel. Nobody ever saw my body. But I remember a high school field trip. I had a bikini with a white T-shirt over it, and when I jumped out of the pool all the guys were like, 'Hey, Curry, you're frickin' hot.' "

The boys weren't the only ones. "Women have always been into me, and I was definitely into women for a long time," she says. "But women are worse to date than men. I feel bad for guys because women are catty, gossipy, bitchy, jealous. That's why if I'm walking down the street with Chris and I see a nice pair of tits, I'll point them out before he can even say something. I don't want to be the kind of girl who says, 'I can't believe you're checking out somebody else's tits!' "

Not that Knight doesn't have his jealous moments. "We went to see Lynyrd Skynyrd, and afterward I asked the band to sign my lower back," she says. "But there are so many of them that it quickly went south, and Chris was like, 'They are not signing your ass, Adrianne.' "

Then there's the reaction she gets from her buttoned-up Manhattan Beach neighbors. Adrianne says, "They see me on the beach with my thong, and I'll hear, 'Hey, put a wrap on. This is a family beach.' I mean, what do they think every night when we're fucking with the windows open and everyone's hearing it?"

Great question. We'll send a reporter over there right away to do a thorough investigation.

See more of Adrianne at cyber.playboy.com.