Olivia Palermo grew up on the Upper East Side where she briefly attended the elite Nightingale-Bamford School. After high school, Olivia spent a year studying in Paris, and briefly studied media at The New School before focusing her energies on the New York social scene.
She first garnered attention when Patrick McMullan spotted her at an auction and took her picture. Olivia began attending more and more events, and made waves when she sat front row at Fashion Week in February. At 20 years old, Olivia soon found herself in the center of the social scandal of 2007.
The now-defunct website Social Rank posted an email purportedly written by Palermo and sent to 70 prominent socialites, asking them for acceptance into their social group. Olivia denied writing the letter, claiming a case of Identity Theft. "I may be a young girl", she said at the time, "but behind every young girl is a powerful father."
During the same time period, Oliva gained attention for a much-hyped feud with Tinsley Mortimer. As it goes, Tinsley Mortimer may-or-may not have purposefully knocked into Olivia at the 2007 Dressed to Kilt party (Tinsley denies this). Olivia certainly had her detractors, but by May 2007, when NY Mag ran a lengthy article on the whole debacle, she was a star.
In 2008, Olivia signed on to be a castmember of MTV's The City, working at Elle alongside Whitney Port and Joe Zee. She signed on to Wilhemina Models in 2009, and in March of 2010 debuted her jewelry line.
Oliva used to date Brad Leinhardt, who founded Izzy Gold. She is now dating Johannes Huebl, a male model. Johannes Huebl often accompanies Olivia to events around town, but Olivia refuses to have him appear alongside her on The City, opting to keep her private life private.
