Tyra Banks
Tyra Banks
Tyra Lynne Banks is an American model, television personality, talk show host, producer, author, actress, singer and business woman. She began her career as a model at age 15, and became the first African American woman on the covers of GQ and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, on which she appeared twice. She was a Victoria's Secret Angel from 1997 to 2005. By the early 2000s, Banks was one of the top-earning models in the world...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Show Host
Date of Birth4 December 1973
CityInglewood, CA
CountryUnited States of America
Us brown-skinned girls get ashy if we don't moisturize.
When I announced that I wanted to do a talk show, a lot of people were very skeptical, which, of course, I understand, ... I think I'm very good at stepping outside of myself and seeing what I think other people perceive and they perceive a girl that has modeled half of her life and that's pretty much it.
On 'America's Top Model,' I've always told my girls to smile with their eyes. We call it 'smizing.' Over the years, it's actually become part of pop culture. I would be walking down the street, and girls would say, 'Smize!'
On 'America's Next Top Model,' I mentor girls on television. When that TV goes off, I actually mentor other girls in the modeling industry - girls that have not been on 'Top Model,' but who appear in 'Vogue' worldwide.
With 'America's Next Top Model,' I've always cast girls who the industry might call 'plus size' but I like to call 'fiercely real.' That was always important to me.
Years ago, when I first started wearing hair extensions, I would get mail from young girls, or young girls would come up to me and they would say, 'Tyra you have the most beautiful hair, like I could never grow hair like that!' And I would say 'Child, this is a weave!'
A girl like you that is not necessarily super tall or has a model proportion has to be almost perfect and you nearly fell off this runway.
'America's Next Top Model' is not a bunch of Barbies - it's a lot of girls that are atypically beautiful.
The judges look at you and every week you are the most beautiful girl to them, but we still haven't seen that in your pictures.
The judges felt the need to save you from this crazy cutthroat world of modeling, that would make a sad girl extremely depressed.
It was really hurtful to me. I get so much mail from young girls who say, 'I look up to you, you're not as skinny as everyone else, I think you're beautiful.' So when they say that my body is 'ugly' and 'disgusting,' what does that make those girls feel like?
Girls of all kinds can be beautiful...
In high school I definitely had a clique of friends. And what I loved about it was that we were healthy and good girls.
When I was a young girl, I lost a lot of weight over one summer - involuntarily - and was just really depressed and sad. There was nothing I could do to gain weight. I would look in the mirror and call myself disgusting every day.