14 DAY TRIAL // Tyra Banks can say some of the funniest-sounding things but she also calls a spade a spade whenever need be. The topic that’s closest to her heart is that of beauty and how it should not fit certain standards created by the industry.
She and her mother founded the TZONE Foundation, which works with young women and girls to teach them just that and, on the occasion of the Flawsome Ball, which will take place on May 6, Tyra says she too can relate to what most women are going through.
Coming from one of the world’s most famous supermodels, this might sound a bit weird but, Tyra assures us, it’s all real. When she was growing up, she went from a regular sized girl to a girl so thin doctors actually suspected her of gigantism, she reveals for People magazine.
She knows now that it was just a growth spurt and that there was nothing wrong with her but, at the time, she was just getting her start in modeling and that meant she had to cope with countless negative comments about her appearance, most of which pointed out to her that she should eat something.
She ate plenty, Tyra says, but she never put weight on because that’s how her body burned calories at the time. Then, she remarks, the tables were turned and she did gain a few pounds. She doesn’t say when this happened but, back in 2007, she was photographed at the beach looking heavier than before.
She was shamed publicly in the media but she didn’t take it lying down. She even wore the same bathing suit on her show to prove that she was the same size as a regular woman: clearly not model thin anymore but definitely not fat either.
“Who would have thought that the girl who was forced to go to the hospital because she's so skinny would one day be called too fat? I know the pain of somebody who's too thin and the pain of somebody that people say is too big,” Tyra muses.
“That 11-year-old girl always lives inside of me,” she says. She’s the reason she does this work with women, to help them understand that the reality of the media is not the reality of everyday life.
“I show them un-retouched photos of myself. They're like, ‘Whoa.’ But I tell them the truth. I want every girl to find their own beauty. I want to be a part of this. Flaws are awesome – so, ‘flawsome!’ I love making up a word,” she continues.