Brigitte Nielsen

I would hate it if my four boys were bullied as I was. My childhood was really comfortable and secure, but school was a nightmare. I was a lot taller than the other girls and they called me Gitte the giraffe. The bullying went on for years, but things weren't like they are now – you didn't really do anything if someone was bullied.

When I was 14, I started smoking to be cool and I ended up burning down the top floor of our house. My dad said to me, "Don't ever lie to me," and he put a pack of cigarettes in my hand and said: "If you have to smoke, smoke with me. Whatever you do, do it with me." And throughout my teenage years and my modelling career, my dad always said to me: "Whatever it might be, it might be good or it might be bad, but whatever it is, let me know."

I've covered a lot of ground geographically and emotionally and for years I lost my connection with my family. But the best comfort you can have, whether you are on the phone or sitting there in the living room with them, is with your parents, and to me family has always meant protection. When you smile you get a smile back, unconditionally.

When my dad died, it was as if my mum died too. They were childhood sweethearts and met when he was 17 and she was 16. They were together for 36 years and my vision of marriage was based on their relationship. It was all I knew, but it is such a distortion of my own way of thinking because I am obviously not like my mum and dad. I'm more. I'm both of them together. I tried to replicate what they had in my own marriages, but I've been in an explosion my entire life.

Despite my divorces, I still believe in marriage and I have believed in all my marriages, although maybe not the one with Sylvester Stallone as I was really pressured to marry him. My current husband, Mattia Dessi, is 15 years younger than me and I'm really happy now. He's probably more mature than me mentally, but physically we're not the same and I do wonder if he will love me when I am 60 and he is 45.

Being a mother is the best thing that ever happened to me. Before you have your first baby you are a girl and then you become a mother. There is no transition into being a woman; you literally become a mum and being a mum means you always love someone else more than yourself and it is an unexplainable situation.

I let my parents bring up my son Julian to pursue my Hollywood dream, but I would never do the same today. I had just finished breastfeeding him and I got the opportunity to appear in a movie called Red Sonja with Arnold Schwarzenegger. But I don't allow myself too much regret as without it I probably wouldn't be sitting here today. I'd be dead.

I'm 48 now and I would like to have another baby. I would love to because of all the things I have learned. It would be like starting all over again. But am I too old? I'm young at heart and I would be different this time round. Mattia and I have discussed it, but I don't know how likely it is. And to interfere with things just because I feel as if I could give more to a child than I did when I was 20 – is that too selfish?

I don't know.

You Only Get One Life by Brigitte Nielsen is out now, published by John Blake, £19

• Family
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• Sylvester Stallone
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