Tyra Banks may be one of the biggest modeling sensations the world has ever seen, but back in the day — when she was first trying to break into the industry — things were NOT exactly easy for her!
The supermodel spoke to the Wall Street Journal in an extensive video interview (which you can see in full, above), and as you can tell, things didn’t go so well for her when she had to work with fellow catwalker Naomi Campbell!
Related: Tyra’s Working On A ‘Modelland’ Theme Park In SoCal!
Interestingly enough, Tyra does NOT call her early struggles with Naomi a rivalry, though. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: as Tyra herself notes in the video (above), Campbell was SUCH a strong supermodel by the time Banks burst onto the scene back in the day!
The America’s Next Top Model creator discussed more during the interview, saying (below):
“It wasn’t a rivalry, and I’m very sensitive to that word because a rivalry is with two equals to me, whereas one was very dominant. She [Naomi] was a supermodel and I was just some new girl that got on a plane from Paris, and was studying fashion in magazines at a fashion library. I had a very painful early days in Paris. As much as I was booking every single fashion show, people didn’t know I was going home at night crying my eyes out because a woman that I was looking up to seemed like she just didn’t want me to be there, and was doing everything in her power to make me go away.”
WOW!!!
Banks continued on speaking about it, noting that there was a racial situation at play with it — and she felt Campbell was threatened by the fact that another black model was fast coming on the scene.
Banks explained (below):
“When I came on the scene, [it was]: ‘Naomi, look out. There’s a black girl that’s going to take your spot … It wasn’t the same for [the white models, including Christy Turlington and Kate Moss]. They weren’t like, look out, another brunette is on the loose.”
Inneresting!
You can watch her explain more in the entire 16-minute-long interview (above)! What do U think about Banks’ non-rivalry with Campbell, y’all?! We wanna hear more from Naomi’s side, too!
Obviously, there’s more than enough room for both of ’em right now… right?? Sound OFF about all of it and more in the comments (below)!!!
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