Bijou Phillips

Bijou Lilly Phillips Masterson (born April 1, 1980) is an American actress, model, and singer.

The daughter of musicians John Phillips and Geneviève Waïte, she began her career as a model.

Phillips was born on April 1, 1980, in Greenwich, Connecticut, and is the daughter of John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas and his third wife, Geneviève Waïte, a South African model, artist, and actress.

She was named for the song "My Petite Bijou" by Lambert, Hendricks & Ross (Bijou means 'jewel' in French).

She is the youngest of Phillips's children; she has one brother, Tamerlane, and three half-siblings (Mackenzie, Jeffrey, and Chynna).

After her parents split up, both were found unfit to have custody of Bijou and she was placed in foster care with a family in Bolton Landing, New York.

She lived there on and off, making extended visits with her parents, who had both acquired houses in the area.

Her father won custody when she was in third grade, and she moved with him to Lloyd Harbor, a village of the Town of Huntington, Long Island.

According to Waïte, when Phillips was 13 years old, her half-sister Mackenzie informed Bijou of her (Mackenzie's) ten-year incestuous relationship with their father, and the information had a devastating effect on Bijou's teenage years, stripping her of her innocence and leaving her "wary of [her] father".

At 14, Phillips left school and moved into her own apartment with a housekeeper, just off Fifth Avenue.

Once described by The Observer as a "wild child", she experienced a rebellious childhood in New York City, where she used to party, drink and take drugs, such as cocaine, ecstasy, and heroin.

On this period of her life, she remarked: "If you were 14 years old and able to live on your own in an apartment in New York City, and you got invited to all these clubs, and you got a bank account and you had a car service you could call so that you could go wherever you wanted ... What would happen?"

Growing up, she became somewhat of a local tabloids' fixture due to her late-night persona and association with other socialites like sisters Paris and Nicky Hilton.

She claimed she lost her virginity to rock singer Evan Dando when she was 15 and he was about 27 or 28.

At 17, following the death of her friend, the 20-year-old Manhattan socialite Davide Sorrenti, her father sent her into rehab.

Phillips was on the cover of Interview magazine when she was 13.

Shortly thereafter, she appeared on the cover of Vogue Italia.

Phillips also became an image model for Calvin Klein and appeared in several advertising campaigns in which adolescents showed white underwear.

The campaigns were widely condemned as eerily pedophilic.

She has expressed her distaste for the modeling world, and once stated in an interview: "It was like, I wanted to go swimming in the ocean, but I was jumping up and down in a puddle."

After signing a record deal at age 17, Phillips began working on her debut album I'd Rather Eat Glass, produced by Jerry Harrison.

In Tart, opposite Dominique Swain and Melanie Griffith, she played the longtime friend of a young woman at a preparatory school in 1980s New York City.

PopMatters found Phillips to be one of the only intriguing actors in the film, "thanks to yet another fearless performance".

In Bully, based on the 1993 murder of Bobby Kent, she played one of several young adults in South Florida who plotted to murder a mutual friend that had emotionally, physically and sexually abused them for years.

The film received a mixed critical response, but famed critic Roger Ebert was a notable admirer who gave it four out of four stars.

Phillips made her singing debut with I'd Rather Eat Glass (1999), and since her first major film appearance in Black and White (1999), she has acted in Almost Famous (2000), Bully (2001), The Door in the Floor (2004), Hostel: Part II (2007), and Choke (2008).

It was released on May 11, 1999, by Almo Sounds, and remains her only full-length music release to date.

The album's title refers to her past as a fashion model, saying she would "rather eat glass" than go back to modeling.

Phillips collaborated with a number of artists when writing songs for the album, including Eric Bazilian, Greg Wells, Dave Bassett, Howard Jones and Jill Cunniff.

Upon its release, I'd Rather Eat Glass received mixed reviews from music critics, mostly criticising the work for being immature, but her musical style has been positively compared to Natalie Imbruglia or Kay Hanley of Letters to Cleo.

Phillips made her film debut in a brief role of the independent drama Sugar Town (1999).

Her first major film role came the same year, as an Upper East Side girl trying to fit in with the black hip-hop crowd, in James Toback's drama Black and White, opposite Robert Downey Jr., Jared Leto, Brooke Shields and Elijah Wood.

The film received mixed reviews and found a limited audience in theaters, but AllMovie remarked: "[The film] starts off strong with a provocative performance by newcomer Bijou Phillips as the most unapologetic seeker of approval from her hip-hop-loving friends. Phillips eventually fades into the background, and the film becomes hampered by Toback's insistence upon grafting a standard crime-drama plot".

Phillips appeared with Kate Hudson in Cameron Crowe's semi-biographical musical drama Almost Famous (2000).

The film was a critical success and received four Academy Awards nominations.

She also was the cover model for the April 2000 issue of Playboy magazine, posing nude in that issue.

2001 saw Phillips star in two independent coming-of-age films.

Her performance in the film led The Hollywood Reporter to name her one of 2002's "Shooting Stars of Tomorrow".

In 2003, Phillips starred alongside Mischa Barton as a member of a bizarre cult of young criminals in the thriller Octane, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

From 2010 to 2013, she played the recurring role of Lucy Carlyle on the television series Raising Hope.