I'm not going to sit here and say, 'Pity me; I came from modeling.' It's opened a lot of doors. People will take meetings because they've heard the name before. That's an advantage that I have.
Modeling, for me, was not fulfilling. I didn't see the point - although I was able to travel a great deal. I lived in Italy, Germany, and Spain, but I wasn't devoted to it.
I like coffee in the morning and decaf green tea throughout the day... When I was younger and modeling, to kick-start a diet I would do a juice cleanse.
I wanted to go to acting school, and I did a few modeling jobs to pay for acting school. I never aspired to be a model. I met lots of photographers, and I learned a lot about light - as a source of love and illumination, light as a gift of love. On film, that's a massive contribution.
Within the modeling industry, there's no doubt that there are some girls out there that are too thin. But there are also girls who are genetically slim and can eat like a horse.
The whole time I was modeling, I had a place in Paris, and a place in New York, and I was really single.
I never looked at magazines before I started modeling. I was 13 or 14, and none of my friends were into magazines. We were into the fashion of the day, though.
I had a really negative look at the night-life side of Hollywood, which I really didn't like. I went to New York to focus on modeling, and then of course found that New York was not any different from Los Angeles.
Fortunately, most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling from others.
I had the serendipity of modeling during a temporary interlude between Twiggy and Kate Moss, when it was actually okay for women to look as if we ate and enjoyed life.
I started modeling when I was - not older, but not 12. I have a mom who's a feminist - she's an English professor, an intellectual. She really gave me the equipment to understand that you can celebrate yourself without putting yourself down or needing to apologize for the way you look. I think that attitude is really crucial for a model.
Modeling was something I wanted to try from a really young age.
There was a modeling agency in my little town where I got my start, but the opportunity came to work in Japan when I was fourteen. My mom went with me until I was seventeen. Her only stipulation was that I had to keep my schoolwork up. My mom was great. She is still my best friend.
With modeling, I'm thankful to have so many work options. But you do have to be able to say no. In reality, everything would be yes because every gig pays more than any normal job. But you still have to keep your priorities straight in life. And my priorities are my girls.
No matter what color you are, if you mentor some little boy or girl, you make a huge difference in their lives because they then model behavior that leads to success versus modeling behavior that doesn't.
Starting at age four, my mom decided that she was not going to have an idle child in the house. So I started taking dance lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then I was in acting classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and I was also modeling on Saturdays. And that was my childhood.
I was picked up on a London street by a model agent. She took me to her office and then sent me to Paris to work in shows. It was supposed to be two weeks, but I ended up living there with my Zimbabwean boyfriend. I made enough money modeling and acting in French movies to buy a nice flat.
I think that being a conscious parent opens your eyes to the fact that any adult relationships that you have, whenever children are present on a daily basis, that they're modeling how they get along with people by what they see how you get along.
I always knew I'd go back to school. Modeling was a means to an end, making money for graduate school.
My mom cooked pot roast with noodles and frozen vegetables. Or she'd make spaghetti or hot dogs, or heat up TV dinners. Before I started modeling at age 19, I was 5'8" and weighed 165 pounds.
The older supermodels sometimes don't agree with the fact there is a new generation of models. We're not saying we're supermodels. I'd rather people look at us as businesspeople, and, yes, modeling is our business right now, but we're not trying to take anybody's spot, and we're not trying to discredit the past.
Modeling is basically 'Buy more stuff! Don't you want some more stuff? It will make you look ten years younger and men will like you!' If I'd wanted to be a salesperson, I would have got a job selling.
When I was 17, I entered a modeling contest in my home province in China because my mother wanted me to learn better posture. And the rest is history!
I never thought about acting before I started modeling, but since then I've been in short films and music videos, and I got interested. It felt natural to switch over.
Modeling isn't boring.
The faces I see in the modeling industry can get dull.
There are consequences with age, so you have to evolve. I've loved becoming a filmmaker. But I would love to continue modeling, and there isn't really any job for me. It's being marginalized - that's the sad part.
Whether it's singing, modeling, acting, you name it, they always label you as the YouTuber, the social media kid, the social media star. It's something that I've heard - a lot - but I kind of just put it to the side.
Before I started modeling, I had never been out of the country, and now I feel like I'm out of the country at least a few times a month, if not once a week.
My first big one-person show was basically a combination of my family, me during puberty, embarrassing newspaper articles that were written about me in high school, my first modeling photos, and terrible things that people said about me on the Internet.
Modeling wasn't the thing that was going to define me in any way; it was just a way to make a lot of money.
I hated modeling.
The problem with interest rates are that you are not modeling a single number, you are modeling a whole term structure, so it is a sort of different type of problem.
When you're modeling you're actually acting for the camera and the photographer. It's more fun, too because there are no lines to memorize.
I express myself a lot on Tumblr, especially through my diary entries, but my Instagram is my modeling portfolio. I have my game face on at all times.
Cause I'm a musician, I'm not really good at posing and being a model, like, modeling.
