>> Top model Daul Kim, who was found dead by her boyfriend last Thursday, hanged in her Paris apartment, "was an excellent model, but she used to say she had hard times off the job," according to one anonymous modelling agent.

Friends told the Telegraph UK that all the constant travelling and the pressures of the fashion industry were taking its toll on Daul, and she had announced intentions to move into painting and video filmmaking.  She already had a solo artwork show in Seoul under her belt.

Police are investigating her death, but suspect suicide; in Daul's blog, i like to fork myself, which since her death has been made private, she often wrote that she suffered from depression, loneliness, and bouts of insomnia.  In 2007, when she first started the blog, she wrote: "I'm definitely not depressed, and I don't want to kill myself I don't want to die." But in one of her first posts in April 2007, she blogged: "My life as dual was so miserable and lonely. Please join my loneliness in another world. I love you all." Later, she added: "KIDDING. I'm fine. Just tired."

One friend says Daul "had become fed up with modelling and its demands, considering her life was too frenetic and incompatible with forming the sort of long-term relationship she hankered for," the Telegraph UK reports.  Another friend told the newspaper: "Her agency was often trying to get hold of her on her mobile, but she refused to be available all the time."