“I am ugly”.
“I have the ugliest forehead in the world”.
“My classmates can’t be wrong…I am no good”.
The tears bust forth like a water from a fountain spilling down Tyra’s face. She felt the muscles in her chin tremble as she pulls off her school uniform. Tyra sobbed into her chest unceasingly, the pain came in waves and she started trembling.
Perhaps these tears will help wash away her shame, she thought. She was tired of being the object of mockery in school……
Tyra hurled back into the arms of her grief and slept off.
Hours later, her brother came in to call her to join the family for dinner. She angrily told him to leave her alone.
“Miss awkward!” Her brother yelled.
Emotions overcame her afresh. Wasn’t it enough that she had to deal with being called ugly at school and every day she also had to deal with her brother teasing her at every opportunity?
Fortunately for her, by the time Tyra turned 17, she had outgrown her awkward phase.
One day a friend convinced her to go into modeling. She did but first attempt was met with rejection and discrimination from the modeling agencies.
Many times, she was told she was too ethnic and too dark skinned.
However, she persisted.
She didn’t let all that rejection stop her from what she saw in the future.
In 1990 while still in high school, Banks landed a contract with Elite Model Management, the largest modeling agency in the world.
Soon, she became one of the world’s top supermodels who made several unprecedented feats in the fashion industry.
Few years, later she started gaining weight and that became problem because gaining weight as a model was a big SIN.
Instead of wallowing in self-pity and do nothing about her situation, she made a calculated move and switched to swim wear and lingerie model.
She worked for Victoria Secrets and broke the sales records many times.
Today, Tyra Banks has 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.’
Tyra Banks has shown us that you can be beautiful, brainy (she later went to Harvard to get more education) and also a success businesswoman.
I think we should be unapologetic that we excel and look beautiful while doing it. ——Tyra Banks.
Image is everything!
Stay beautiful while crash the ceiling!
