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Fabio talks dating at 62 and his hope to still marry: 'There is quantity, but I want quality'

SAN DIEGO, CA - JULY 21:  Actor Fabio Lanzoni on the #IMDboat at San Diego Comic-Con 2017 at The IMDb Yacht on July 21, 2017 in San Diego, California.  (Photo by Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for IMDb)
Fabio, in 2017, said he sleeps in a hyperbaric chamber to help fight aging. (Photo: Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for IMDb)

Fabio continues to be a fascinating character.

While it's been a minute since we interviewed him, we didn't know the model and sometimes I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! spokesman had retired. People magazine touts that it lured the "ultimate hunk of the '90s ... out of retirement" for a new interview discussing staying sexy at 62, aging and lost love.

His secret to still looking good — besides beast mode in the gym and avoiding alcohol, drugs and sweets, as he always has — is that he sleeps in a hyperbaric chamber.

"Reverses the aging process," the Italian-born star, whose real name is Fabio Lanzoni, told the magazine — presumably with a flip of his hair.

He continues to look for Mrs. Right — though still pines for the one that got away. He talked about a recent date, which included dinner and a ride in one of his 31 sports cars.

"There is quantity, but I want quality," Fabio said of his ideal mate.

He said he wants to get married — and, an even bigger deal, "I still want to have kids."

He said prospects must "be able to be in the middle of nature," as he splits his time between L.A. and a 500-acre property on the Columbia River in Stevenson, Wash. "She can't be afraid about bugs," he says.

Nor can she be social-media-obsessed — as he's not a fan and doesn't have accounts.

Asked about a breakup he previously opened up to the magazine about — in the early 1990s with an unnamed woman — he said he's still not over it. Though he knows it was his fault, saying, "I treated her badly. She wanted to settle down, and I was just too wild." He still wouldn't identify her, but said she was a model and has a family of her own.

"You see, when you really love a person, it's forever," he said.

In the interview, he also recalled the moment he first realized he was first-name-only famous. A model with several successful campaigns, including Versace and Gap, under his belt, he was dancing in a club in Miami in 1987.

"These three girls come over and say, 'You look exactly like the guy on our books!'" he recalled. "I said, 'That's a good pickup line.'"

The women left but returned with romance novels in hand — and there he was in his shirtless, glimmering muscled and wavy locked glory. He didn't realize a few photos he took were going to be used on book covers. His image was later used for some 1,300 romance novel covers in total — and was the man part of his early notoriety. (Goose-gate came later.)

"I go like, 'Oh my God, that's me,'" he said. "It was the first time I saw myself on the cover of the books."

(Photo: Amazon.com)
(Photo: Amazon.com)

Fabio later wrote his own historical romance novels — and several other books. He's had his own product lines and appeared in films on TV, usually as himself.

A few years back, Fabio, then a newly minted U.S. citizen, spoke to Yahoo about his latest projects — as well as that long-standing dislike of social media he mentioned.

"No, I have a life," he said with a laugh whether he was on social media. “I have people who run a fan club, but I have a life."

He went on to say, "Something right now that drives me crazy is people are always taking a selfie. It's like: Hello. Live life. You have to take a selfie and post it, ya know, 'Look at me, I'm on Fifth Avenue. Now I'm on Sixth Avenue. Now I’m on Seventh.' Who cares? Get a life."

He added, "A lot of people today don’t live life anymore. It's computer, phone, tablet. Their brains are going to be fried 15 years from now. I love life and I spend every single minute living it."