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| timo weiland's twitter |
Catherine McNeil is one of Australia's best-known modelling exports. The winner of the 2003 Girlfriend Model Search, at age 14, McNeil debuted on models.com's prestigious Top 50 Women list at number 26 in early 2007, the year her international career was springboarded via covers of both Vogue Paris and the American V Magazine. But who knew McNeil also had New Zealand citizenship? Apparently not even some in her Australian mother agency, Chic Management, until frockwriter's phone call this afternoon enquiring about an image of McNeil that was just taken by New York-based designer Timo Weiland and published on Twitter. In the rather unflattering shot, a cigarette dangling from her lips, McNeil is holding what looks to be a bottle of Corona beer in one hand and a New Zealand passport in the other. The Brisbane suburb of Coopers Plains is clearly stated as her place of birth, which would give McNeil automatic Australian citizenship by birthright - although that said, due to changes to Australia's citizenship legislation in 1986, only if one parent was an Australian citizen or had permanent residency. According to Chic Management, McNeil's maternal grandmother is a Kiwi and McNeil's mother spent many years living in New Zealand. We await further information.
