If James Cameron ever gets round to casting a female Terminator - "it doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop," - he might as well just call IMG Models and get them to send him Kate Moss, writes Stephen Armstrong. In the face of a barrage of tabloid drug scandals, constant low-level gossip column sniping and hastily lobbed tales of her lurid bedroom antics, the model has simply walked on regardless, barely even taking a flesh wound from all the flying shrapnel. Indeed, it's quite the opposite. This autumn she is facing her best season yet, appearing in a record 14 advertising campaigns which could net her, according to industry estimates, an astonishing £10m by the end of the year.
Although the Mirror's white powder snoot scoop cost Moss deals with Chanel and Henne & Mauritz, she has recently signed new contracts as the face of Burberry, Bulgari and Dior to name but three. She is also one of Versace's main models for Donatella's autumn shows and the star of four short erotic films for Agent Provocateur, shot by Mike Figgis. The films have proved so popular that the underwear brand's server crashed within minutes of them going live. "She's like the goose that laid the golden egg," says Jim Hurley, retail analyst at Telsey Advisory Group in New York. "Everybody wants her."
This, of course, flies in the face of conventional media wisdom. As last year's scandal unfolded, Moss said and did almost nothing at all. Headlines and revelations about Cocaine Kate filled front pages for almost 10 days. It's rare that a celebrity has faced such a monstering and maintained their career. Anthea Turner vanished from our screens for years after injudiciously posing with a sponsor's product at her wedding. Moss - a mother - was accused of drug-fuelled orgies with her rock star boyfriend. Does this mean that we have finally found a celebrity who is immune to the tabloids?
"Kate's comeback was partly down to the loyalty of the fashion industry," says Malcolm Poynton, executive creative director at Ogilvy & Mather. "Before the Mirror story she'd been complaining about fashion magazines giving covers to non-models, but since the scandal broke she's been on the cover of British Vogue, Vanity Fair and W, and there's a revived interest in the whole dying breed of supermodel. At the same time, she works as brand spokesperson for an industry where everything is constantly changing. I think a more stable brand would struggle to rehabilitate her."
Moss's one nod to the expected "drugs hell" contrition narrative was a brief sojourn at an Arizona rehab clinic. Close friends report, however, that as she boarded the flight to the US she muttered something that sounded like - "I'll be back."
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