Diane Kruger

Diane Kruger

Diane Kruger loves living next door to Karl Lagerfeld.

The 36-year-old actress owns a plush Los Angeles pad next to the Chanel fashion boss and says he likes to surprise her by pulling up beside her on the curb and making jokes about her groceries.

She revealed: "I'll be coming home from the local butcher in my sweatpants, just walking up the street, when a gold Hummer will come round the corner, and the tinted window will come down slowly, and it's Karl saying, 'Hello Diane! What's for dinner!'

"It's so surreal, I love it. He literally lives one door down."

The model-turned-actress was announced as the new face of Chanel skincare in April, after having fronted several campaigns for Karl's fashion house in the past, so she feels extremely loyal to the luxury brand.

Diane said: "I stated modelling for them when I was 15. I know everyone there on a first-name basis. They were the first ones to send me clothes when I started out as an actress.

"And loyalty is so rare in our business that it makes sense to be supportive. It's not always about money."

The blonde spent her teens working as a model, but gave it up in 1998 because she felt like she was just an object to designers and couldn't voice her opinions.

She explained: "It's something to do with growing up and becoming a woman, you want to have your own say. And no one asks a model, they just tell them. You're the coat hanger - and I found it limiting."

The 'Troy' star claims everyone in her small German hometown was shocked when she was spotted by Elite Model Management aged 15 and whisked off to Paris since she didn't look like the average model.

Diane explained in an interview with Marie Claire magazine: "I'm not very tall. I'm not one of those girls you look at and think, 'Oh she must definitely have been a model'. I mean, I know I'm photogenic, but people didn't think, 'She should be a model.' "