Written By Zaida Diaz
“I didn’t have a role model growing up that looked like me . . . there are no celebrities up until this point in the last couple years who are out here talking about back fat and cellulite and being ultra-curvaceous and have it still be sexy,” says supermodel, and now author, Ashley Graham about why she became a body image activist. This also inspired Graham to write her first book titled, “A New Model: What Confidence, Beauty, and Power Really Look Like,” which we talk to her about on Sway in the Morning.
Graham tells us what it was like growing up as a curvy girl, being raised in a strict household, and recalls vividly the scary incident that made her realize that her curvy body went hand I hand with sexuality.
She gets very real in her book as she describes experiences that led to her gaining insight about herself, but she discusses the “not so pretty” side of playing the fashion industry game, like taking drugs and flashing her boobs to get into clubs. “I feel like I’m an open book . . . so I put it all in there . . . I just think that was a very ugly part of my life, but I’m happy to talk about it because I want other people to learn from my mistakes.”
