Victoria's Secret just cast its first transgender model & she's a total babe
Valentina Sampaio confirms her Victoria's Secret casting, making her the first openly transgender model hired by the brand
The news comes less than year after Victoria Secret's chief marketing officer, Ed Razek made controversial comments about transgender models
Sampaio confirmed the news on Instagram, with the 23-year-old sharing behind-the-scenes pictures from her new VS Pink shoot
Less than a week after rumours started circulating that the 2019 Victoria's Secret show might be cancelled, the brand appears to have hired its first transgender model, Valentina Sampaio.
23-year-old Sampaio announced the news on Instagram by sharing a behind-the-scene picture of her shooting for VS Pink.
"Backstage click @vspink" wrote the model, wearing a bathrobe.
A post shared by Valentina Sampaio (@valentts) on Aug 1, 2019 at 8:10am PDT
Laverne Cox commented on the post "Wow finally!" and fellow VS model, Lais Ribeiro shared a load of clapping emojis:
A day later, Valentina shared a second post captioned "never stop dreaming gentee" followed by the hashtags "#vspink" "#diversity" and "#vstorm"
A post shared by Valentina Sampaio (@valentts) on Aug 2, 2019 at 11:07am PDT
Less than a year ago, Victoria's Secret's chief marketing officer Ed Razek faced backlash for his comments about transgender models, specifying why they wouldn't be included in the show:
"Shouldn’t you have transsexuals in the show? No. No, I don’t think we should. Well, why not? Because the show is a fantasy," he said.
Razek subsequently apologised for his remarks but, for many, the damage was already done.
Please read this important message from Ed Razek, Chief Marketing Officer, L Brands (parent company of Victoria’s Secret). pic.twitter.com/CW8BztmOaM
— Victoria's Secret (@VictoriasSecret) November 10, 2018
"My remark regarding the inclusion of transgender models in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show came across as insensitive. I apologize," said Razek. "To be clear, we absolutely would cast a transgender model for the show. We've had transgender models come to castings... And like many others, they didn't make it... But it was never about gender. I admire and respect their journey to embrace who they really are."
The new recruit comes a week after VS model Shanina Shaik claimed the 2019 show is cancelled.
"Unfortunately the Victoria's Secret show won't be happening this year," Shanina told The Daily Telegraph. "It's something I'm not used to because every year around this time I'm training like an angel."
"But I'm sure in the future something will happen, which I'm pretty sure about," she continued. "I'm sure they're trying to work on branding and new ways to do the show because it's the best show in the world."
To be honest, we're not 100% sure what's going on with this year's show, but let's not allow all that noise get in the way of congratulating Valentina on her kickass gig - we're definitely looking forward to seeing more from this bombshell!
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