In the issue, she explains that she couldn’t get runway work as a young model because of her chest size. (Allure/ Norman Jean Roy)
Stunning Heidi Klum reveals in a new interview that she couldn’t book a runway show when she was 20. And she was even rejected by her “Project Runway” co-star Michael Kors.
“I never did fashion shows—not in Paris or Berlin or even in New York City. I tried, but no one would book me,” the Lifetime host explains in Allure magazine’s May issue, in which she’s photographed nude by Norman Jean Roy. “I was too curvy and too busty and a little too short. And I was a little bit self-conscious about it.”
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Klum reveals that even “Project Runway” judge Kors told her, “Thanks, but no thanks.” She says the rejection shook her confidence and made her wonder whether she was in the right line of work.
“I was by no means heavy, I just—well, you have hips and boobs, and that’s it. Haute couture, you don’t really see girls with big boobs,” she said. “And I always wanted first to be a model. So I had to say, ‘OK, you’re going to find other things to do in this industry, or it’s maybe not my industry.'”
Klum found her place modeling for Victoria’s Secret and went on to a flourishing career. She says she worries when she sees young models going under the knife to try to fit themselves into a cookie cutter mold for the industry.
“Everyone has a view of what’s pretty and what’s not pretty, and [surgery] just doesn’t look pretty to me,” said Klum. “Especially when I see it on really young girls. I don’t want to name names, but it’s like, ‘Wow, I remember you five years ago, looking to me so beautiful, and now it’s like, ‘Who is this person?’ I know girls half my age who do it. What are they gonna do at 40 or 50, when the [bleep] really hits the fan?”