00:00It feels so good to be back with Essence magazine.
00:04It's very different.
00:06Oh my gosh, my last cover was absolutely stunning,
00:09but it was much more commercial, much more safe.
00:13This is like, is that terrible?
00:15What, is that terrible?
00:16It's high fashion.
00:17It's not fashion, it's show.
00:19It's a show.
00:28I remember that first cover of Essence that I did.
00:31I think I was in St. Croix and I was like,
00:34I don't know, 19, 18, 19 years old.
00:37I remember they braided my weave.
00:40I think that was a weave.
00:41And they were like,
00:41girl, we ain't having this weave on this cover.
00:43We're gonna braid this up.
00:44So they braided it.
00:45It was so beautiful.
00:46And I felt like a queen or maybe a princess child.
00:49I wasn't even 21.
00:50And now, beauty means so many different things.
00:53I mean, I was a fashion model in Paris,
00:55living in Paris when I did that cover.
00:59And, you know, beauty back then,
01:01diversity just meant black.
01:03That's it, just skin.
01:05It didn't mean height.
01:06It didn't mean body type.
01:08It just meant, okay, you've got a different skin color
01:11than most of those girls on that runway.
01:14So to see where the world is now is,
01:16I didn't think I would see it in my lifetime.
01:18I think what has changed about the beauty industry compared
01:23to my early days as a supermodel is the changes happening
01:27from the outside, meaning social media.
01:30It's very difficult to make change from the inside.
01:33You know, I dedicated my life to that and did a lot.
01:36Broke up down a lot of doors for myself and just for others
01:39in terms of like beauty and diversity and talking about things
01:43that people were like, that's beautiful.
01:44I don't see that as beautiful, but it still was inside.
01:49But now to have the power of social media and people demanding for change,
01:54that's why the changes happened.
01:56Not because some fashion editor said, let's do something different.
01:59One thing about me, I started and I was very thin when I first started modeling.
02:05Very thin.
02:05But my body was not meant to be that way.
02:09It was meant to be curvy.
02:10It was meant to have lumps and bumps and beautiful.
02:13But when that was first happening to me and my modeling agent told my mother
02:18that that was not a good thing, there is self-doubt and like, oh my gosh,
02:23maybe I should just not eat as much and I should just run all the time
02:26and I should just change myself.
02:28You know, I thought maybe I should eat less and work out every second.
02:32And my mom, she said, no, you're not going to change yourself for this industry.
02:38Find another part of the industry that will celebrate you.
02:42And not everybody has that opportunity.
02:45To this day, not everybody has that opportunity.
02:47But I had a mother that was loving and strategic and understood that there were other parts.
02:53And so I left high fashion and went into mass fashion, Victoria's Secret and Sports Illustrated
03:00and clients that celebrated my curves.
03:03But everybody still to this day doesn't have that opportunity.
03:06I never thought in a million years that I'd be shooting a magazine cover at 51.
03:10I never thought that Linda Evangelista and Naomi and all of these models from back in the day
03:16would like have agents and be working magazines and catwalks.
03:21Back in my day, 26 was like, okay, it's over.
03:24And there were a few models that were in their 30s, but that was rare.
03:28So today to see this diversity, not just in beauty, but in the age, in the number,
03:37in that date on your passport or your driver's license, not to have that be a negative is beautiful.
03:45I didn't retire from modeling because I was over modeling.
03:49I retired from modeling because I knew that my time was coming, that the phone was ringing
03:56and everybody wanted me on their magazine covers and their runways and all of that.
04:00But I wanted to walk away before it walked away from me because I knew that it was a ticking
04:05time bomb
04:06and it was going to explode, meaning it's over.
04:10Models are like athletes, like it's about the youth and it's that physical.
04:15And once it starts to change, move over and make way for the young.
04:18But it's so beautiful to see that those times are changing.
04:26If I could go back to 1993 and give Lil Taro, Lil Tata, some self-confidence advice,
04:34it would be that right now it is hard.
04:39It is crazy.
04:40They're saying that only one black model can be on top at a time.
04:44And you're going through hell, hell.
04:48But there's going to be a time when you are going to see the doors that you have opened,
04:53the doors that Iman, Naomi Campbell, Naomi Sims, Gail O'Neill, the list goes on and on and on
04:58of us beautiful black women that we have had to have so much pain to open those doors for so
05:05many others.
05:06And now there's not just that one token.
05:09So I would love to tell 19-year-old me or 1993 Tyra that you're going through a lot of
05:15pain
05:16and it's friggin' crazy, but the next models are not going to have to go through that.
05:22Beauty tips that have stood the test of time for me?
05:25I love me some Vaseline and they don't pay me.
05:28Y'all don't pay me, so I need to stop talking about Vaseline.
05:30But Vaseline is a little bit like an eye cream as long as you don't get it inside your eyes.
05:36A lot of us do this.
05:38Black people, we do this, but moisturizing every part of my body.
05:43During COVID, I was ashy.
05:45I was just like ashy.
05:48Like I was not my skin color.
05:49I don't know.
05:50I was, I don't know what was going on.
05:52But that moisturizing every part of your body is what keeps your skin subtle and smooth and just young.
06:00So put your lotion on and if you stop doing lotion after COVID, put your lotion back on.
06:06Beauty trends in the 90s.
06:09There were so many.
06:10I'm going to say one and it's going to sound crazy right now because I have it right now.
06:15But them damn skinny ass eyebrows.
06:17Those makeup artists love to pluck all of our eyebrows out.
06:22And I thought it was so beautiful, but now I do love a thick brow, like more of a natural
06:28brow.
06:28However, when you're shooting fachon for essence, you like let them make your brows go away and create new edgy
06:37brows.
06:39Skinny brows.
06:40But this is a fachon brow.
06:42This is not a, this is not a 90s too skinny brow.
06:45For black women to continue to have power and visibility in the beauty industry is you need not just advocates
06:52that are saying, oh yeah, black women should be on that cover.
06:56You need black women in power saying that.
07:00Black people in power saying that and having the power to make those decisions.
07:07And so we get that power for a little bit, then it goes away and we get hard and then
07:11not another and it goes backwards and forwards and, but that's what it takes is to have the power to
07:18say yes.
07:20The life lesson that has made me fearless is different is better than better.
07:25Creativity, uniqueness.
07:26You're doing it that way.
07:27I'm going to do it that way.
07:28And I'm going to be damn unafraid.
07:30I'm going to mess up and it's going to be crazy sometimes, but at least it's unique.
07:34The last thing I Googled, hmm, best ice cream in Sydney.
07:42Because I'm trying to see if Spice and Dream is on there yet.
07:44We're not yet though, but it's only been two weeks, so we got a little time.
07:49One of the most interesting unknown facts about me is sometimes I will not leave my house for days and
07:56have my robe on five days in a row.
08:00When I'm feeling down, I call my mama and I go from crying to laughing in like five minutes.
08:06Ten years back, I wish I would have known that I was going to have the most beautiful baby boy
08:11and that he is just the most precious, crazy, fun, wacky.
08:16I'm like, why are you so crazy?
08:17And I'm like, oh, you're my child.
08:18Your mother is crazy.
08:19Why do you do that?
08:20Oh gosh, I do that.
08:22So ten years ago, I wish I would have known just how happy I would be today.
08:26Thank you very much.
