Elle Macpherson & Disgraced Doctor Beau Brought Together by Their Passion for 'Alternative Health'
Elle Macpherson has been with her new love for a while.
The supermodel, 54, was photographed kissing Andrew Wakefield in Miami, Florida, on Friday one year after her divorce from billionaire Jeffrey Soffer.
A Miami modeling source tells PEOPLE Macpherson and Wakefield, 61, “have been dating for a while and seem to have much in common.”
“Both are interested in alternative health practices and nutrition and sort of buck the norm to pursue their own idea,” the insider says. “They agree on many health and nutrition issues. But he is not that well known around Miami.”
The source adds Wakefield, a disgraced doctor who linked vaccines to autism in a retracted study, was married for many years before meeting Macpherson.
“Elle swept him off his feet after they met at a business convention last year,” the source continues. “They have kept things low-key but the romance is not new.”
Wakefield was a gastroenterologist in Britain before being removed from the UK medical register for unethical behavior, misconduct and fraud.
Macpherson’s camp has declined to comment on their relationship.
In 2010 the British General Medical Council barred Wakefield from practicing medicine after investigating inquiries that Wakefield acted dishonestly in his research and conducted invasive and unnecessary procedures on children. Afterward, his 1998 paper, in which he falsely claimed that the polyvalent measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine was linked to autism, was retracted.
He continued to defend his anti-vaccine views in 2011 saying that his findings and research were not fraudulent.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, no scientific study has found a link between vaccines and autism.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends vaccinations for Hepatitis B, rotavirus (RV) RV1, RV5, DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis), Haemophilus influenza type B, pneumococcal conjugate, inactivated poliovirus and influenza over the first year of a baby’s life.
Macpherson and Soffer split in June 2017 after nearly four years of marriage. A source close to Soffer tells PEOPLE the two “were pretty unhappy together the last few years” of their union.
“They had broken up but went back together after his accident,” the insider said, referring to a helicopter crash in 2012 that left Soffer injured and his friend dead. “It didn’t work out which is not surprising since they had already broken up.”
In the meantime, Macpherson has switched her lifestyle routine after finding a lump on her breast on her 49th birthday.
“I thought I had cancer. I was away shooting Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model so I couldn’t see my doctor and I was really panicking,” she told the Daily Mail in October 2015.
“It was four weeks before I got the biopsy results, so it was a long-drawn-out and stressful period of not knowing,” she said.
The source tells PEOPLE Macpherson has been doing well since then and has focused on taking care of her health.
“Elle has been in good shape for quite a while and seems really happy,” the source says. “She lives an extremely healthy life, eats well and likes to talk about it.”
