We all remember the beautiful model/actress, Ola Ray from Michael Jackson’s infamous 1982 “Thriller” video. But what we didn’t know was that she was dating a superstar, Old School athlete back in the day; nor that soon after becoming the then-most popular video models, her life spiraled out of control. Ola Ray discussed what transpired during that era of her life, in a prior interview.

Drug Addiction After “Thriller” And How Then-Boyfriend Jim Brown Tried To Help

In a People Magazine interview, Ola Ray revealed that following the massive success of the “Thriller” video, she plunged into the fast life, which came with dabbling in drugs.

Via People Mag: Ray herself admits, “I got involved in the drug scene.” Following a 1992 bust for cocaine possession, she agreed to spend nine months in a Tarzana, Calif., treatment facility.

After her release from rehab, NFL legend-turned actor, Jim Brown, welcomed her into his home and they became a couple. They’d previously met at the Playboy Mansion, Ola Ray was a former Playboy Playmate model at that time. Unfortunately Jim Brown says he had to move on due to Ola’s then-relapse:

Via PM: “She is a good-hearted person,” says Brown. But Ray, he says, resumed her drug habit, resulting in their breakup a few months later. Ray denies she backslid and says she left Brown because he treated her badly.

Paternity Controversy Over Her Daughter’s Father

Then came the confusion over who Ola Ray believed was the father of her now adult daughter, Iam. Initially, there was one potential candidate, then it turned into more:

Via PM: [Jim] Brown later found himself the defendant in a 1999 paternity suit filed by Ray on behalf of daughter Iam. At the time, Ray was living with an L.A. real estate broker with whom she got involved shortly after leaving Brown. She had at first assumed the new man in her life had impregnated her. But she says she began having doubts when Iam turned 3, “because every time he’d pick her up, she’d scream.”

But the shocker for Ola Ray was that her baby’s dad was not who she would have expected:

Via PM: DNA tests proved that neither he nor Brown was Iam’s father. Ray then asked her longtime friend Terry Clark to be tested. “The baby turned out to be mine,” says Clark, 47, a CBS cameraman. “It was a big shock to me.” He and Ray, off-and-on lovers since 1987, had had a one-night stand around the time she and Brown broke up. Now he is paying more than $1,000 a month in child support. “I totally love my little girl,” he says. “She did a good job bringing the kid up; it’s made Ola a better person.”

She “Freaked Out” And “Hid”

Though the success of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album and video brought massive public appeal to Ola Ray, an aspiring actress at that time, she admits that it scared the hell outta her and she didn’t know how to handle it:

Via PM: “I had no idea it was going to be that big,” she says of the video, which sold a million copies over the next decade and now ranks No. 1 on MTV’s list of the 100 Greatest Videos Ever Made. “Every magazine in the world was calling me. People were knocking at my door. I freaked out. I hid.”

Prior to “Thriller,” Ola ray says she was booked and busy non-stop, but afterwards she claims her refusal to perform sex acts behind the scenes made it difficult to get jobs:

Via PM: A bigger disappointment, she says, “is that after Thriller came along, I stopped working.” One reason, she claims, was her refusal to give “sexual favors” to producers.

However, her daughter’s father, disagrees with Ola Ray’s assessment or why she stopped getting gigs back then:

Via PM: “I’m sure that has a little to do with it,” says Terry Clark, a friend and former lover. “But what got her in trouble was not wanting to give up the party life.”

Since this interview in 2002, Ola Ray has had her share of ups and downs. We’re not sure what the status of her sobriety is now, but we certainly wish her the best. She’ll forever be the girl who millions of fellas had a crush on in the ’80s and whose shoes millions of ladies dreamed of being in as she stood shoulder-to-shoulder MJ in “Thriller.”