She is the second of three South African women to hold the Miss World title after Penelope Coelen in 1958 and before Rolene Strauss in 2014.
Kriel was born in Pretoria to an Afrikaner family and raised in the mining town of Witbank, the daughter of a prison officer.
[citation needed] As a student, Kriel lived in Huis Asterhof (formerly Vergeet-my-nie) while studying drama at the University of Pretoria.
[citation needed] During this time, Kriel appeared in the film "Somer" and an Afrikaans television drama entitled "Storieboekmoord.
[3] She was awarded the Miss World title that same year, after initially being the first runner-up, as Helen Morgan was disqualified for being an unmarried mother.
[2] She later admitted that she had been raised in a sheltered environment with censored press and scant knowledge of life in South Africa's black townships; “I was 19.
"[8] Her 1994 cover of Playboy South Africa sold 120000 copies in ten days, bettering the regular monthly circulation of 96000.
[12] In 1975, Kriel was embroiled in a scandal when she posed for nude photographs taken by Roy Hilligenn, a Mr Bodybuilding South Africa on the Vaal River.
[17] Beeld newspaper reported that Kriel was present when Henke Pistorius accidentally shot himself whilst cleaning his pistol.
)[22] South Africa's Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris criticised Piron for undertaking the conversion "without checking with us" and the Johannesburg Beth Din refused the couple permission to marry in an Orthodox synagogue.
[2] Tucker wanted sole custody of the children after the court had given Kriel permission to move the family to a mansion in Bakoven in Cape Town.