Adriana Lima (Portuguese pronunciation: [adɾiˈɐ̃nɐ ˈlĩmɐ]; born 12 June 1981) is a Brazilian model. She was a Victoria's Secret Angel from 2000 to 2018, having made her Victoria's Secret Fashion Show debut in 1999, making her the longest-running Victoria's Secret Angel and model. In 2017, she was named "the most valuable Victoria's Secret Angel" by American analytics company D’Marie. She is also known for her Super Bowl and Kia Motors commercials.
Lima is currently ranked by models.com as one of the "legends". In 2012, she came in 4th place on the Forbes top-earning models list, estimated to have earned $7.3 million in one year. In 2013, she came in 3rd place and in 2014 she came in 2nd place with earnings of $8 million. In 2015, she came in 2nd place with earnings of $9 million. In 2016, she kept the second place with earnings of US$10.5 million.
Lima has served as brand ambassador for the clothing brand Desigual based in Barcelona, Spain, for the Beachwear collection of Italian brand Calzedonia, and for the ready-to-wear collection of Italian brand Sportmax. She has also served as an ambassador for the International Watch Company (IWC), Puma, Maybelline, and Chopard.
Lima was born on 12 June 1981 in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. Many sources stated that "Francesca" is her middle name, but Lima herself denied this in an interview to W Radio Colombia in 2010, and confirmed that her name is only Adriana Lima. Her parents are Nelson Torres, a carpenter, and Maria das Graças Lima, a social worker. Torres left the family when she was six months old, and Lima was raised by her mother. Despite this, Lima has expressed appreciation for her time spent with her father before his death in 2015. She was raised in the Castelo Branco neighbourhood of Salvador. Prior to modelling, she had planned to pursue a career as a paediatrician.
Lima is of Portuguese, Native Brazilian, African, Japanese, Swiss, and West Indian descent. She personally identifies as Afro-Brazilian.
Lima speaks four languages: her native Portuguese, English, Italian, and Spanish.
Lima never thought about being a model, although she had won many beauty pageants in elementary school. However, a friend at school who wanted to enter a modeling contest and did not want to enter alone, so Lima entered with her. Both sent in pictures, and the contest sponsor soon asked Lima to come out for the competition. Soon after, at age 15, she entered and finished in first place in Ford's "Supermodel of Brazil" model search. She subsequently entered the 1996 Ford Models Supermodel of the World contest and finished in second place. A year later, Lima moved to New York City and signed with Elite Model Management.
Lima made her runway debut at Anna Sui's New York Fashion Week show in September 1997. As a runway model, she has walked the catwalk for designers such as Rosa Cha, Blue man, Fashion's Night Out, Caio Gobbi, Fause Haten, M. Officer, Luca Luca, Liverpool Fashion, Dosso Dossi, Carmen Steffens, Cía Maritima, Agua de Coco, Lino Villaventura, Forum, Vassarette, Zoomp, Joan Vass, Cori, Emilio Pucci, Fendi, Giles Deacon, Carmen Marc Valvo, Emanuel Ungaro, Baby Phat, Giorgio Armani, Balmain, Bottega Veneta, Sportmax, Vera Wang, Valentino, Miu Miu, Givenchy, Versace, Cividini, Alexandre Herchcovitch, Jason Wu, Marc Jacobs, Christian Dior, Paco Rabanne, Victoria's Secret, Sean John, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Desigual, Cynthia Rowley, Sully Bonnelly, Anna Sui, Guy Laroche, John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Yigal Azrouël, Ralph Lauren, Christian Lacroix, Escada, Nanette Lepore, Richard Tyler, Triton, and Betsey Johnson.
Her first magazine cover was Marie Claire Brazil in September 1998. Her first Vogue covers were the Italian Vogue Gioiello in September 2000, on their 20th Anniversary issue, and Vogue Brasil the next month.
Lima became a GUESS? girl in 2000, appearing in that year's fall ad campaign. She also appeared in the book A Second Decade of Guess? Images.
Lima continued to build upon her portfolio, doing more print work for Maybelline, for whom she has worked as a spokesmodel since 2003 to 2009. Also in the same year, she appeared in the company's first calendar and did an ad campaign for Swatch. Lima has also worked for notable fashion brands bebe, Armani, Versace, De Beers, Elie Saab, Colcci, Schiaparelli, Prada, Intimissimi, GUESS?, LOEWE, H&M, Bulgari, Miu Miu, DKNY, Emporio Armani, Givenchy, Keds, Mossimo, Jason Wu, Balmain, Blumarine, Marc Jacobs, Maybelline, BCBG, and Louis Vuitton.
She also appeared on the covers and in the editorials of other fashion magazines such as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, ELLE, Grazia, Cosmopolitan, Interview, GQ, W, Arena, V, Esquire, Garage, and French Revue des Modes.
Her April 2006 GQ cover was the highest-selling issue of that magazine for the year. It was also one of the all-time best selling issues of the publication. The magazine named her "the world's most voluptuous virgin".
In 2006, Lima ranked as the fifth highest paid supermodel. Between 2007 and 2008, she ranked as the world's fourth highest paid supermodel by Forbes.
In 2008, she again fronted the cover of GQ, this time attracting a record number of visits to the publication's website. She also appeared in the 2005 Pirelli Calendar and became the face of Italy's cell phone carrier, Telecom Italia Mobile, a move that earned her the nickname, "the Catherine Zeta-Jones of Italy".
In February 2008, Lima was featured on the cover of Esquire, re-creating the classic 1966 Angie Dickinson cover on Esquire's 75th anniversary. She appeared only in shoes, diamonds and gloves for the November 2007 issue of Vanity Fair celebrating 20 years of supermodels with her fellow Victoria's Secret Angels. In February 2008, she was chosen to be the face of Mexico's Liverpool department store chain and launched the partnership with a press conference, runway show, and a summer campaign.
Lima returned to the high fashion runway in 2009, walking for Givenchy. In the same year, after visiting Turkey, she signed a contract with Doritos to appear in print campaigns and television commercials which began airing in Turkey that April. She was also one of the faces of Givenchy for the Fall/Winter 2009 season.
In 2011, Lima signed a deal as a spokeswoman for Megacity by Votsu, a Brazilian social gaming company, to appear in their commercials. Lima has worked with the most established photographers in fashion such as Annie Leibovitz, Juergen Teller, Bruce Weber, J.R. Duran, Paolo Roversi, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matidin, Vincent Peters, Mario Sorrenti, Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, Steven Meisel, David Sims, and Mario Testino.