Maye Musk — an anomaly in the modeling industry at age 71 — continues to break down barriers in the world of beauty, but her personal life has rarely been picture perfect.
The supermodel-turned-author is opening up in her new book, “A Woman Makes A Plan: Advice for a Lifetime of Adventure, Beauty, and Success,” and told Page Six Wednesday that she’s learned, “You make a plan in your life, and then things go wrong.”
A life-changing moment that stands out for Maye took place nearly 40 years ago, when she divorced then-husband Errol Musk.
“I got married to a person who was aggressive, and then he said he would change when we got married, and he got worse,” she said.
Maye wed Errol, a South African engineer she met in high school, in 1970, and the couple had three children.
The dietitian said she often wanted to leave the relationship, but “couldn’t do anything because the law wouldn’t allow me to get divorced.”
The Divorce Act, which legalized a dissolution of marriage in South Africa, did not go into effect until July 1, 1979.
That year, Maye finally walked away from the marriage, which she remembers as being both “physically and mentally abusive.”
“When my husband was actually going to beat me up at a social event, my friends took me to my mom’s home, and she didn’t know that I was getting beaten up,” she told us. “I didn’t share it with her. I didn’t share it with my friends until they saw it publicly, and after that he wasn’t allowed to beat me.”
The Covergirl spokesmodel said she wishes she told her loved ones sooner, and advised other women in a similar situation to “go to your family and friends.”
“When you make a big change, it will be scary, but you can’t just stay in a bad situation,” she said. “You will be financially strapped, usually, and you know, you can live on peanut butter sandwiches, so you just get away and try to find happiness.”
When Maye finally got divorced, she found fulfillment in working as a single mother — even taking up to five jobs at once to help raise her kids, according to a 2018 interview with CNBC.
Her finances improved once she gained supermodel status at age 69 after she became Covergirl’s oldest spokesmodel, but her love life has not gotten much better.
Maye has “pretty much given up on the dating game.”
“You hate to say you’re a failure, but I was pretty much a failure,” she said. “I would stay dating a guy who was treating me badly, and I was very hurt and sad, and then eventually I would have to break up, but I would still be very sad about it.”
Although she is perennially single, the fashion maven is “having the best time ever.”
“I’m traveling the world,” she said. “I think if anyone wanted to date me, he would barely see me, and he would have to be really more fun than my dog and also happier to see me than my dog because my dog is really happy to see me when I go home.”
Her three children, restauranteur Kimbal, filmmaker Tosca, and SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk, have “never been impressed” with her dates, but Maye admits, “They were right.”
The supermodel told us she also keeps her opinions about who her kids date to herself.
Elon, 48, has been dating Grimes — who is 17 years his junior — since April 2018, and the eccentric singer hinted Wednesday that she may be pregnant with what could be Maye’s 12th grandchild.
Maye said, “I don’t criticize because they say I actually have a poor record myself, so I’m not really an expert on dating.”