Sophie Anderton is sitting on the bonnet of her new Mercedes sports car on the road above Llandudno Beach in Cape Town, planning a dinner party. It’s not going to be in a glitzy restaurant with fellow models in designer clothes, but at her rented house by the beach where she’s been living for the past four months with just a few close friends.

“I wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle of celebrity life,” she explains. “I was living the kind of life which everyone expected of a model but which eventually takes its toll…Here I can go and sit on the beach and contemplate life. You can’t compare it because they’re different lifestyles and I’m a totally different girl now.”

Her positive outlook is partly due to the new man in her life, Greg Cartoulis, 29. “Relationships based on friendship are the most successful relationships in the world,” she says. “Greg and I have been friends for four years and he’s always there for me. He’s seen me through good and bad and never judged me.”

For the full interview with Sophie Anderton and stunning photos of the model in Cape Town, see this week’s HELLO!, on sale now.