Cindy Crawford: How I'm Learning From My Mother's Financial Mistakes

USMagazine, Friday, March 8, 2013, 4:30pm (PST)

Cindy Crawford is learning from her mother's money mistakes. During the March 10 episode of Oprah's Master Class, the 47-year-old supermodel reflects on how her parents' divorce -- and her mother's financial dependence on her father -- affected her work ethic.

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"Unfortunately my parents, you know, were one of those couples that didn't make it. When they finally did really get divorced, my father would give my mother money every week for child support," Crawford recalls. "But if he was mad at her because she'd gone out on a date or done something else, he wouldn't give her the money that week. And that sometimes meant we didn't get grocery money or gas money. And I saw that and I was like, 'This will never happen to me. I will never be in that situation where I can't take care of myself.'"

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Crawford, who is now a married mother of two, realized at an early age how important it is to rely on herself. "I'm lucky because in my career, I am financially independent," she explains. "Even if I stopped working today, I could take care of myself."

The Illinois native -- wed to restaurateur Rande Gerber since May 1998 -- also reveals how her self-made fortune as a supermodel and furniture designer strained her relationship with the 50-year-old.

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"For Rande, my husband, it was hard for him to get used to me not needing that from him. But there's still places in our relationship where I have to let him get that feeling. It's okay to lean on someone. I've had to learn to back down a little bit from that and to be okay, even if it's little things. I've had to slow down, let him open the door. That feels good to him, and then guess what? It feels good to me, too," Crawford says. "But as a 16-year-old girl, seeing my mom having to plead for money every week to feed the kids, I just thought, 'I will never be in that situation."

Crawford's episode of Oprah's Master Class airs Sunday, March 10, at 10 p.m. EST on OWN.

This article originally appeared on Usmagazine.com: Cindy Crawford: How I'm Learning From My Mother's Financial Mistakes