Top 10 Forgotten ’80s Babes Then and Now 2024

80s babes! Boom! Don’t panic. That wasn’t actually a real explosion, just the sound of some of the biggest bombshells the world has ever seen. Bombshells so amazing we can still hear their reverberations to this day. The decade is the 1980s, and beautiful ’80s babes are everywhere.

They lit up the silver screen, graced the covers of magazines, and were plastered on bedroom walls all across the country. Today we are going to be looking at some of the most attractive women of the ’80s.

Elle Macpherson: 80s Babes

Elle Macpherson then and now super model
Elle Macpherson / Everett Collection and John Nacion/starmaxinc.com STAR MAX Copyright 2019

In 1982, Elle Macpherson’s future was laid out before her. She had just been accepted to study law at Sydney University — the only problem was she had no money for books. So the 6-foot stunner with gorgeous dirty blond hair decided to take a year off and model in New York City to raise money for her university expenses. It turned out to be a good decision, as Macpherson, now 59, would go on to become one of the biggest supermodels of the ’80s.

IF LUCY FELL, Elle Macpherson, 1996
IF LUCY FELL, Elle Macpherson, 1996 / Everett Collection

She appeared in ads for everything from Ralph Lauren to Diet Coke, and was on the cover of Sports Illustrated so much — a record five times to date — that Time Magazine nicknamed her “the body.” But Macpherson wasn’t just a pretty face with the mind of a lawyer. In the ’90s, she branched out into acting, playing a recurring character on the TV show Friends and starring in the atrociously campy Batman and Robin. Today she is on top of the business world — Macpherson runs her own lingerie company, Elle Macpherson Intimates, and produces a line of beauty products appropriately called The Body.

Sigourney Weaver: 80s Babes

Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver / Everett Collection

No one in the 1980s combined the ability to kick your ass with ravishing good looks quite like the supremely talented Sigourney Weaver. The daughter of an actress and a TV exec, Weaver fell in love with acting at a young age, eventually attending the Yale School of Drama with fellow future superstar Meryl Streep. Imagine those acting classes! But it was Weaver’s breakout role in Alien as the bomb-dropping bombshell Lieutenant Ripley that set her up to conquer 1980’s cinema — and boy did she.

GHOSTBUSTERS, Sigourney Weaver, Rick Moranis, 1984
GHOSTBUSTERS, Sigourney Weaver, Rick Moranis, 1984 / Everett Collection0

Hit after hit followed, with movies like Ghostbusters and Working Girl garnering both critical acclaim and box office success. And through it all Weaver glided through the decade with a poise and grace most people can only dream of. Weaver’s career hasn’t slowed down since the ’80s: she starred in the fantasy film Avatar in 2009 and is appeared in the latest Ghostbusters installment, Afterlife, plus she’s in in two sequels to Avatar (the first of which, Avatar: The Way of Water, was released at the end of 2022). On top of that, she’s still somehow just as beautiful as ever at 74.

Lisa Bonet: 80s Babes

lisa bonet
Lisa Bonet / Everett Collection and Birdie Thompson/AdMedia

It would have been hard for fans of The Cosby Show in 1984 to picture one of the family’s adorable children being included in a list of ’80s bombshells, but fast forward five years and boy did Denise Huxtable grow up. Lisa Bonet had always been beautiful, as a child she starred in beauty pageants and had numerous guest spots on TV shows. But by the late ’80s, her alluring, smoky eyes and perfect cheekbones helped her become one of the most gorgeous women of the decade. And she let everyone know.

HIGH FIDELITY, Lisa Bonet, 2000
HIGH FIDELITY, Lisa Bonet, 2000, (c) Buena Vista/courtesy Everett Collection

In 1987 she starred in Angel Heart alongside Mickey Rourke, and the two had a sex scene so steamy it had to be edited down to achieve an R rating. She then posed topless to promote the film in the magazine Interview, and the label child star was left far behind. After The Cosby Show ended, Bonet semi-retired from acting, making sporadic appearances in movies like High Fidelity and the TV show The Red Road. These days Bonet makes occasional guest spots on TV and helps raise her two kids with her husband, Aquaman himself, Jason Momoa, though they announced their marriage was ending in January 2022. Today she’s 56-years-old.

Heather Locklear: 80s Babes

heather locklear
Heather Locklear / Everett Collection and Peter West/ACE Pictures ACE Pictures

With piercing blue eyes and silky blond hair, Heather Locklear in the 1980s was the poster child for the girl next door. She rose to fame as the scheming niece on ABC’s Dynasty. Along with Dynasty and further cementing her status as one of TV’s biggest stars, she appeared opposite William Shatner in T.J. Hooker. Audiences loved her whether she was a rich oil heiress or upstanding cop, and she always looked stunning either way.

DYNASTY: THE REUNION, Heather Locklear, 1991
DYNASTY: THE REUNION, Heather Locklear, 1991, © Aaron Spelling Prod. / Courtesy: Everett Collection

Post ’80s, Locklear continued her dominance of television, starring in Melrose Place in the ’90s and Spin City in the early 2000s. While she still makes TV appearances to this day, sadly Locklear is in the news now more often for personal and health-related issues. In 2018 she was arrested twice for two separate instances of battery and was also hospitalized with a suspected overdose on prescription medication. While definitely a troubled person today, we’ll always remember Locklear, 62, for her beaming smile and the uninterrupted string of TV hits.

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