Tyra Banks is saddened by 'America's Next Top Model' protégées losing weight to conform to fashion industry standards.
The retired supermodel tries to embrace women of all shapes and sizes on her long-running modelling reality show, but she admits she can't always control their experiences after leaving the show and finds herself disappointed when past contestants shed pounds to book jobs.
She explained: "The sad thing is that on average, my girls on 'America's Next Top Model' are larger than the high fashion girls on runways, and when they leave they're excited; they're like, 'Yay, I'm going to start modelling.' And then they get in the real world, and they're like, 'My agent is saying I need to lose 20lbs.' I'll see them four months later and they are a bone. A bone. It's just like, 'What?'
"Then I realise that they were in this beautiful incubator of safety, but then when they leave the competition, they're out there with the wolves, and to compete they have to lose that weight. That's a sad fact."
"I can't control what's out there, I can only control what I produce on my show. I have seen a couple of them and talked to them after, and I'm like, 'What's going on? What are you doing?' And they tell me that that's what the agency wants, and they're under the agency's care. There's only so much that I can do. But it does sadden me."
The former's Victoria's Secret model also opened up on her own insecurities walking the runway in skimpy lingerie and believes the entertainment and fashion industries often perpetuate a negative image that women need to be extremely thin to be considered beautiful.
She told Digital Spy: "The skinnier a lot of actresses are, or singers are, or celebrities are, they tend to get a lot of coverage. A lot of, 'Oh, she's such a fashion darling, look at her, let's take her picture as she goes shopping, let's put her on the cover of our magazine.'
"The fashion industry has a very narrow definition of what beauty is - specifically now, it's a size 0 [or] 00."
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