Victoria's Secret said I sold more bras and panties than anybody else, and I was traipsing down that runway with 30 pounds more booty than the other girls."īanks returned to the front of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition in 2019, 23 years after she first graced its cover. "I made my living being 20 or 30 pounds heavier than the average model," Banks says. Unwilling to starve herself to achieve the desired physique for high-fashion models, Banks decided to return to the United States and switch to swimwear and lingerie modeling, where curvier models are more welcome. But by the mid-1990s, Banks began to gain weight, a forbidden sin in the world of rail-thin clothing models. She booked 25 runway shows while in Paris in 1991, an unprecedented feat for a newcomer to the industry. After graduating from high school in 1991, Banks enrolled at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, but decided to forego college when Elite offered to send her to Paris for high-fashion runway modeling.īanks rose swiftly through the ranks of fashion modeling to become one of the world's top supermodels. Later that year, she shot her first print piece for Seventeen magazine. In 1990, while still in high school, Banks landed a contract with Elite Model Management, the largest modeling agency in the world.
I had two birthday parties, two Christmases. "I stayed with Mommy on the weekdays and Daddy on the weekends. "As far as I could see, I had it made," Banks remembers. Banks' parents divorced when she was only six years old, but she says that she was too young for the divorce to negatively affect her.
Her father, Don Banks, was a computer consultant and her mother, Carolyn, was a medical photographer. Tyra Lynne Banks was born on December 4, 1973, in Inglewood, California. Staring in 2017, Banks took over Nick Cannon's hosting duties on America's Got Talent. Banks has continued to expand her business interests, launching her own cosmetics line in 2014.
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She later hosted the reality TV program America's Next Top Model and her own daytime talk show, for which she won two Emmy Awards. Tyra Banks was a leading international fashion model and the first Black woman to land on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.
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It's not a chase for material goods, it's about learning what inspires you in life and creating a plan to turn it into your life's work.” “Vogue's decision to ban images of women who 'appear to have an eating disorder' is a move that should be celebrated.” “Love me or hate me, I promise it will never break me.” “Love is an excuse to be stupid.” “A smart model is a good model.” “Kiss my fat ass!”Ī former supermodel, Tyra Banks turned her runway success into a multimedia brand and worked at the helm of two successful TV series simultaneously, 'America's Next Top Model,' and 'The Tyra Banks Show.' Who Is Tyra Banks? But look in the mirror and find one thing that you like.” “Women should understand that there is no such thing as standard beauty.” “The American Dream is about fulfilling your potential to the max. It turned out that the best things in my life were to be made fun of, and to have no friends, and to feel miserable every single day.” “I was taught to enjoy food, not to fear it.” “The girls who don't feel like they have body peace yet, that's normal and that's OK. Pledge that you will look in the mirror and find the unique beauty in you.” “I went from being the popular girl who looked normal, to being considered a freak. It's not easy, though, because many people still put beauty into a confining, narrow box. “Girls of all kinds can be beautiful- from the thin, plus-sized, short, very tall, ebony to porcelain-skinned the quirky, clumsy, shy, outgoing and all in between.