Ashley Graham’s curves have helped her make a name for herself, but to say that she always embraced them would be false.
“Do I sometimes wish I were thinner? God, in the old days, absolutely I did, but now I feel that to lose weight would be disloyal to myself,” the 28-year-old model told British Vogue. “A lot of who I am is connected to my size, and I am so happy with who I am.”
As you probably already know, Graham quickly became one of the world’s top models for her curves, but she adamantly refuses the titles she’s often associated with: “plus-size.”
“When we’re supposed to be talking about diversity for women, it feels so divisive and purpose-defeating, giving us yet another label,” she said before revealing how many challenges she went through at the beginning of her career. “For 10 years I’d been told I was always going to be a catalog girl, never a cover girl. Well, I got with IMG and did five covers in a year, boom, boom, boom. See, if you have a pretty face doors will open, but your job isn’t just to walk through them; it’s to get invited back.”
“Look, I hit the beauty jackpot — I get it — but that’s not enough. You’ve got to have more to have longevity in this business,” she continued. “It’s always been ‘OK, so what can I do now?’”
She said the same to ET in May. “I’m a woman, I am a model and I’m happy exactly where I am,” she proclaimed.
And hell yeah, you should be.
