Linda Evangelista has detailed her harrowing experience as a young teen trying to make it in the cutthroat modeling industry.
The iconic supermodel, 58, revealed how she was pressured into stripping down for nude photographs at just 16 years old in Apple TV+’s “The Super Models.”
“It’s ironic that my parents let me go to Japan when I was 16 on a modeling contract,” she shared. “They wouldn’t let me go on the school ski trip, but they let me go to Japan.”
Whilst in Japan, the Canadian beauty said she “freaked out” after being asked to take her clothes off for a modeling job.
“When I got to Japan, first thing they asked me was about nude photographs,” she recalled. “And they wanted to take all my measurements and take my clothes off.”
“And I’m like, I just made a composite and it had my measurements on it, and I didn’t want to take my clothes off,” she went on, adding, “I kind of freaked out.”
“I never should’ve went there by myself. I went home. I sort of gave up,” she added.
While it’s not all been smooth-sailing for Evangelista during her rise to the top of the modeling world, she ultimately earned her stripes as one of the most successful runway stars to date.
Funnily enough, the model recalled wanting to quit the industry for good but was stopped in her tracks at a Miss Teen Niagara pageant, when she was first introduced to agent John Casablancas, who offered up a contract with his agency.
The new Apple TV+ show, a four-part series now available to watch, sees Evangelista be joined by Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Christy Turlington as the foursome explore their careers and discuss their behind-the-scenes stories.
The supermodels first reunited on the cover of Vogue’s September issue in black and silver outfits, while remembering their time on the runway in the ‘90s.
It comes as Evangelista this month revealed that she was diagnosed with breast cancer twice in five years.
“It was detected in my annual mammogram,” she told WSJ Magazine of her first diagnosis in 2018, adding that she told her oncologist to “dig a hole” in her chest to “excavate” the tumor.
“The margins were not good, and due to other health factors, without hesitation, because I wanted to put everything behind me and not to have to deal with this, I opted for a bilateral mastectomy.”
After undergoing the procedure, Evangelista thought she was “good and set for life” and “breast cancer was not going to kill” her.
However, the disease had returned in July 2022 when she felt a lump on her breast.
Evangelista said that her current prognosis is “good” and she’s back in the modeling game, having most recently teamed up with her docuseries co-stars to kick off London Fashion Week.
