Tyra: the joys & perils of being a top model - Cover Story

Ebony, May, 2004 by Aldore Collier

The stares are incessant and come with the territory. Fans and the generally curious often don't take the polite route to avert their stares when she walks by. Women stare in admiration, awe and envy. Men stop everything and look and look and look a combination of adoration and lustful fantasies. But Tyra Banks is so accustomed to it that she barely notices.

As one of the most recognized and successful models in history, the 30-year-old Los Angeles native has had years of dealing with extreme attention. Modestly, she attributes much of the attention to her height of 5-foot-11 and the fact that women that tall will always receive a certain amount of attention. She giggles when her measurements, graceful gait and alluring smile are thrown into the equation, but dismisses the compliment. "I don't even notice people staring anymore," she says. "They probably stare a little more when I have my hair and makeup done. When it's just me with my cornrows and a washed face and flip-flops, they don't stare so much."

The height is just one factor that makes her a standout. Another factor is her career. After being a super successful runway model and for Victoria's Secret lingerie for the last eight years, now she is the producer of the successful UPN series America's Next Top Model, which has been renewed for two more years, and she has taken on the recording industry.

Her first single, "Shake Ya Body," produced by Rodney Jerkins, has the music world taking notice of her talents. Singing is something she has done and enjoyed for almost eight years, even bopping and humming on the runway. But she kept it a secret, fearing that people "would roll their eyes and be skeptical and say, 'She's just some model talking about singing.'" But she persevered and worked with a voice coach and established producers. Then she hit pay dirt several years ago when she was in Memphis for the Mike Tyson/Lennox Lewis boxing match and was stopped by Jerkins.

"I was on the way to my seat and Rodney Jerkins tapped me on my shoulder and said, 'Yo, I hear you're singing.' I had been trying to keep it a secret but people knew. He said, 'We need to hook up.' So, I flew to Atlantic City and recorded with him. He liked what I did." Her album is scheduled to be released by the fall.

To an outside observer, Banks' life would appear to have a fairytale element to it. She has had extreme career and financial success since high school, never failing in any venture. But she is quick to point out that nothing is ever as rosy as it appears. First of all, after she was talked into pursuing modeling by a high school friend, she received six rejections in a row, some brutal enough to make her cry. "I kept going because my friend, Khefri Riley, who was a model, kept telling me I had a certain look, and my parents were so supportive," she recalls.

The seventh try was the charm and she was signed by L.A. Models Agency. "They said they'd take me, but they didn't think I was very photogenic. But they thought I could do fashion shows. So, that's what I did."

Ultimately, she was able to overcome doubters and do photo work, too. "I'm used to hearing the word 'no' because people say that to me all the time," she says. "When people say 'no' or that I should stay away from certain things, I take it as 'Oh, okay you're telling me to stay away from that. I'm going after it.'"

The world of modeling was a major springboard for her. She traveled all over the world and did shows in the three fashion capitals of the world--New York, Paris and Milan, and even lived in the French capital. But the work was intense and unsettling.

"It was very hectic when you do five or six fashion shows a day for about six weeks," she remembers. "if you're a top model at the top of your game, you do that many shows for a week and a half ill each city. I literally would dream fashion shows. It consumes your life. I would get sick."

As successful as she has been, Banks openly says she was passed on a number of assignments because she was "thicker" than the other models. "When I was a fashion model, I was a lot heavier than the other girls," she says. "I had larger breasts, a lot more butt and larger thighs than the other women. You can't do as many fashion shows as you would like because of that."

And she has been very critical of the dimples on her posterior. "I wish I didn't have them, and I try and try to work out to get rid of them, but I think no matter how much I work out, this is something the women in my family passed down to me," she says. She points out that whenever she is seen modeling the seductive wear during the Victoria's Secret fashion shows her butt is always covered with a skirt. "You ain't never going to see my butt!" she proclaims. "I always hide it."

Then there's that issue of her forehead. As a kid, she was teased for having what was considered a large forehead. Luckily, officials at modeling agencies saw the forehead as one of her most alluring features. And it's one that Tyra calls "a beautiful African trait."