The British beauty has formed a close bond with the former South African president since meeting in the early 1990s and he fondly refers to her as his “honorary granddaughter”.
Campbell admits she is “blessed” to have Mandela in her life and she hopes his forgiving nature will one day rub off on the notoriously fiery stunner.
She tells Interview magazine, “I have to pinch myself sometimes because who in the world doesn’t want to know Nelson Mandela? But I’ve been extremely blessed to have been in his presence many times… He’s someone who I often think about when things get tough and life isn’t full of roses. Nothing can be as hard as what he went through.
“Now, I don’t have his constitution for forgiving. I hope one day to acquire that. But I don’t hold grudges either. When things happen, I just kind of want to move away from them for a while and hope that things will come back in a more positive light.”
Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years after campaigning against racial segregation in his country in the 1960s and he later went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
