Vendela Kirsebom Thomessen was born in Stockholm on January 12th, 1967. She was first discovered at a restaurant in Sweden at the age of 13 by Eileen Ford. Within 3 to 4 months, of arriving in the US, she was negotiating a contract with Elizabeth Arden. When her contract with Arden ended she started working with Almay as their spokesperson. She has appeared as a guest on several TV/cable shows and also appeared in several TV commercials. Vendela relocated to Los Angeles to pursue her acting career. She is a supermodel and she appeared six times in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue (1992-1995, 1997, 40th Anniversary Hall of Fame edition in 2004).

She worked as a TV reporter during the 1994 Olympic Winter Games at Lillehammer, Norway, for the Norwegian TV channel NRK.

She was the host, together with Anders Lundin, in Melodifestivalen 1999 (1999) (the Swedish national Eurovision song contest).

Lives in Oslo, Norway, with her two children, Julia Annette (b. 1/2/1998) and Hannah (b. 5/25/2000).

Her father is Turkish, her mother is Norwegian.

She is fluent in Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, German, Italian and English.