when I started modeling I was like a 38 hip which is like a lot bigger than what I am now I'm like a 35 now which I'm like huge been modeling it's like huge I'm a model I'm a model a couple weeks before my first season started my ex-boyfriend and I got in a giant fight I kind of went this like really really low place where I just like couldn't eat just kind of lost like a lot of weight from that and then when I went to my agency and I took digital's I got all
these options was when I was like the sickest I've ever been I went to meet with the agency and they measured me and they told me that I needed to lose I think it was like two inches off my hips and maybe two off my waist I was a perfectionist so I associated doing a good job with modeling with losing the weight so I did and it started out as just being more mindful I guess and then it did escalate and escalate and escalate my lowest weight was 98 pounds when I was 17 and that
was after I had just done a very successful season in Paris there was one casting in London I was 17 I remember walking into the room full of people and the designer gave me this bodysuit to put on there was no changing room she made me just short like get naked and she took one look at my body and kind of snick it and laughed said that's not gonna work and then walked out of the room left me there naked put back on my clothes in a room full of people when you're 15 you already
have all this pressure all over you know and to have everybody watch you grow up and just judge you when all that kind of stuff was what stuff you know I went to Paris and after the first day of castings my agency told me that the response from my first day of castings 4 shows us that I had gained too much weight and was unusable for the shows we flew home the following day and the day after that there was a headline on the front page of the fashion section of The Wall Street Journal and
it said a model Ally Michael sent home for being too fat to have this expose on the thing that I felt most insecure about in my life reaching everyone was absolutely mortifying um I don't know I feel like I was publicly shamed but you know I also just think it shouldn't be a big deal orally but it did affect me at the time I wanted to hide and I didn't want a lot of people kind of um you know I'm putting cameras in my face and pre man Franco myself newspapers what I was receiving for
many years was that my body was not right and it's it's almost impossible to erase that and I thought that I had really gotten it under control and then I was in a really healthy place and I earlier this month got the opportunity to cast for it this job that I wanted for my whole career and they tell you a month ahead of time so you can get ready for it and the entire month was like torture for me no I came into this industry as a teenager and then I hit puberty and I was
no longer that teenager anymore I had boobs and you know my body wasn't his stick skinny anymore so I was pressured to go back to being that runway girl I almost was told that like modeling was done for me and then Sports Illustrated kind of relaunched my career so it was a really amazing moment because it was me being me on the cover of a magazine and fully being accepted and embracing myself you don't just take the picture and go home and then you don't know what happens with it this image where I've put myself
out there in this way or I've been really vulnerable and and real and shown it all and just gone for it has helped in some domino effect this woman look at herself differently put on a bikini go to the beach have fun with her friends and it completely changed why and how I do this job people always think how are you so confident like where did you get it and it's like I opened up a box I just look for it today but like I worked really hard to be 26 and like okay with who
I am and to do what I care about which at the end of the day is just creating space for more people to feel seen I booked the editorial and was freaking out and didn't really know that that would be the turning point of my career once I saw the physical cover and my face was there with the masthead it felt like time stopped and now we started for sure a new chapter [Music] [Music] you
