GIVING BACK: “I first worked here when I did a Chanel cruise show up on that hill, I remember walking down was weird, walking up was weird, too. I love this location and I’ve supported a lot of amfARs here,” said Toni Garrn, slipping into her seat at a charity lunch and auction she cohosted with Amend on Friday on the terrace of the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc, with views across the Mediterranean.
Over 130,000 euros was raised at the event, with event producer Andy Boose auctioning off items including a Terry O’Neill photo of David Bowie and Elizabeth Taylor and a Chopard Happy Love watch. Guests included Remo Ruffini, John Nollet, Ellen von Unwerth and Daria Strokous, with the funds raised going to Amend’s programs for preventing road traffic injuries to children in Africa and the Toni Garrn Foundation, which supports education initiatives for girls in Africa.
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In business mode, Garrn wore a pink suit by Victoria Hayes. “I feel like a Barbie,” said the model-turned-actor, whose latest roles include playing a German secret agent in “Spider-Man: Far From Home.”
“I have a very strong German accent, it’s really fun. I get to give Tom [Holland], who plays Spiderman, a new suit because he’s traveling through Europe. I’m like, ‘You cannot wear a red and blue suit anymore, you need a black suit,’” she said.
Garrn, who once dated Leonardo DiCaprio, said the paparazzi situation in Cannes “is way worse here than anywhere else.”
“I remember, one time my friend and I were trying to get back on the tender of a boat we were staying on, but there were so many paparazzi we couldn’t find it. So now there are all these pictures of me going, ‘Where are you?’ and just a billion paparazzi not letting me on,” she said. “It was one of those moments, I feel like everyone here feels like a Hollywood superstar for a minute.”
On her charity work, Garrn, who recently returned from a trip to Ghana and has just wrapped a program in Zimbabwe, said, “There are 30 million girls [in Africa] who are not going to school, and if you educated those girls they would turn into educated mothers.” She added, “There’s a saying in Africa: ‘If you educate a woman, you educate a village. If you educate a man, you educate a single person.’”