Tyra Banks: Success Isn't Linear
At the start of my career, I lived in a “two body” world. One was full of beautiful white girls who would excitedly be like “OMG, you are so skinny!” The other was my beautiful African-American community of friends and family, who were always trying to fatten me up.
So when I gained weight around the age of 22, after years of successful runway modeling, I didn’t care. All the black people clapped their hands, like my body was coming along nicely and I’d finally started listening to what they’d been telling me since I was 12.
The modeling world, on the other hand, felt differently. They weren’t happy. In fact, they were pissed. I will never forget a certain man from the industry and the look on his face as I sat across from him at lunch. I thought he was about to tell me I’d booked a huge job, but he said, shaking his head, “You’ve had your moment. There are only about two or three girls who can become icons every 10 years, and you couldn’t possibly do that. You can be a catalog girl now.”
The words flew out of his mouth so fast that I knew this was the speech he pulled out of his files for just such an occasion. This was the “You is over, bitch” lunch.
After years of being the It Girl, now I was about to become the Out Girl. I went home and cried to my mother. I said I wanted to keep modeling,
that I’d lose weight, that I’d try anything. My mother grabbed me by the shoulders and told me to stop it. Soon we were sitting in our favorite pizza place at our usual table in the corner, and Mama took out a pen and paper and handed it to me.
